Primordial Space Ooze: Alternate Ending
by Inferna13
Summary: If you've ever read the Invader Zim comic Issue #7, you know that Zim created a clone from the rocket fuel as an experiment, only for it to be killed two panels later. This follows that storyline, only Zim is forced to take care of this smeet which is indeed, still alive.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: What's up? This is my first story on this specific website, but trust me when I say I have writing experience. This story was written pretty recently in my notebook and I figured it was good enough to put on the internet. So yeah.**

 **Anyways, if you haven't read the Invader Zim comic issue known as "Primordial Space Ooze", it's okay because I'm gonna explain what happens before the actual alternate ending starts.**

 **Taking into account the fact that I'm absolutely OBSESSED with Transformers as well as Invader Zim, there will be the occasional reference or two scattered around, possibly even JTHM references for you psychopaths out there. If Enter the Florpus comes out in the middle of the story, I'm probably gonna obsessively rant about it in the author's notes but the storyline will NOT follow the continuity.**

 **I plan to release a chapter every Sunday, but no promises.**

 **I don't know if I HAVE to do some sort of disclaimer, but all Invader Zim characters are property of Jhonen Vasquez and probably Nickelodeon too. OCs are all mine, though.**

Chapter 1

Deep in some random part of space unseen ever before by human eyes, a sputtering, maroon-pink space cruiser flew by, sporting "grade A" thrusters and "top-level" navigation systems (according to its pilot). It was a wonder the thing flew at all, really.

Said pilot, a green-skinned Irken Invader with ruby red eyes and an attitude problem, eagerly monologued away to his robotic servant sitting goofily next to him.

"Another glorious victory, GIR!" He announced proudly.

"We have survived Blastropolis-the most violent battle-mall in all of known space and emerged with a TERRIFYING HAUL OF NEW WEAPON-STUFFS!"

The ship was full to the brim with random weaponry, leaving barely enough room for Zim and his companion.

"SQUIDGYTOMIC LAUNCHERS! GALAXUS ZORM RIFLES! EVEN A SHLOOGHORGIAN DOOKIE-NIGHTMARE-POD!"

GIR giggled.

"Ehhehhe...Dookie."

Zim sent him a sideways glare and continued.

"I only needed space-pants, but with THESE, the Earth will FALL BEFORE ME in less time it takes to juice a PLIKUVIAN HOT DOG GOBLIN!"

He then paused and dropped his dramatically raised arms.

"They're full of juice, you know?"

GIR, oblivious to every word his master had just said, leaned in uncomfortably close with a giggle.

"Isn't you gonna ask what I got?" He squeaked.

Zim grimaced, preparing for the sheer horrific horror that was sure to come.

"Ehhh...well, what did YOU g-"

"I GOT THIS THING!" GIR screeched, deploying some sort of giant, blue and black slug monster from his head.

"AIEEEEGH!" Zim screamed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!" GIR screamed back

"NOOOOOOO!" Zim howled as the cruiser spun out of control. "Destroy it! AAAAGH!"

The ship lurched violently to the side.

"Not the controls! The thing! THE THING!"

Zim braced for impact as a nearby planet's surface grew closer and closer, screeching at the top of his lungs... wait, do Irkens even HAVE lungs? ...Whatever.

"Prepare for emergency-"

 _SLAM!_

The cruiser crashed into the ground, sending random metal parts and rocket fuel careening in every possible direction. It slid across the ground for a second, tearing a hole into the landscape as it went. Finally, it lurched to a stop with a hiss of air leaving the cockpit. Zim cautiously opened one eye and looked around.

"Well that wasn't so bad," he remarked. GIR cheerily hugged his somehow-still-intact pet.

"I love you, monster-slug."

"Ejection activated," droned the unenthusiastic voice of the computer. Zim snapped his head up suddenly.

"What? No!"

The seat sprung up under the Irken, shooting him horizontally into the ground as GIR and the slug watched. He came back, skin smoking and attempting to brush the dust off of his uniform.

"This is your fault, GIR!" He spat reproachfully, pointing at his little robot sidekick.

"Okay, thanks!"

Zim ignored the response and examined the state of his smashed, crumpled Voot Cruiser.

"GIR! This'll take some time to repair. Scan for life!"

GIR saluted, his eyes glowing an obedient red.

" _ZERO PERCENT FAUNA. ZERO PERCENT FLORA. ZERO PERCENT SNACKS_." he droned, lacking his usual cheekiness. To bad he couldn't ALWAYS be that way.

Zim grimaced. "This place is a rock, GIR. A lifeless death world."

GIR quickly faded back to his signature turquoise.

"YAAAY! DEATH WORLD!" he cheered.

"No GIR. That's bad."

"Awboooooo."

Zim returned to his work on the ship with a sigh, holding out a three-fingered hand.

"GIR! Hand me the space-wrench! I must begin repairs immediately!"

The little robot happily gave his master something.

"...GIR, this is a pretzel."

"Yah it is."

While Zim ranted at his servant for screwing up YET AGAIN, a nearby puddle of rocket fuel began to bubble and swell, bits of electricity sparking around it.

"Pay attention, GIR!" The Irken commanded. "If we cannot repair the Voot cruiser then we'll FAIL our mission to conquer the Earth!"

GIR twirled the slug around his torso, not at all paying attention to his master's words.

"Zim does NOT fail, and... it's weird, how does this thing even fly at all?"

In Zim's distraction, a small bit of strange grass and teeny tiny saplings began to creep toward the pair slowly but surely.

"If I wasn't so amazing I'd swear this thing is made almost entirely from garbage parts."

The saplings grew into trees as the plant life edged a bit closer, now beginning to grow over a nearby weapon thrown from the Voot. A stray leaf flew by Zim, who swatted it aside.

"Out of my way, impetuous leaf-thing! Zim is worki-"

He looked up in surprise, faced with an entirely functional community of plant life, complete with butterflies (much to GIR's delight).

"WHAT FLORAL MADNESS IS THIS?!" The small Irken screeched, dropping his space wrench. He looked around with perked antennae, taking in the nature that surrounded him.

Soon his overly logical brain kicked in and began working out the current situation.

"Hmph. It seems the Voot Cruiser's fluid leaks have mixed with the planet's... _planetey_ stuff and created some sort of primordial shmeep shmoop," he mused to no one in particular. "The tiny life forms have entered a state of extreme hyper-evolution."

He gestured to a growing community of germ-like organisms crawling out of the puddle of glowing green rocket fuel.

"What should take millions of years is unfolding right in front of the amazing eyes of ZIM!"

The extraordinarily small blobbish inhabitants of the planet gathered together, seemingly confused on what they should do next. Zim bent down to get a closer look.

"What is this? An emerging society of single-celled creatures? Kind of ugly. But still," he murmured to himself.

The weird blob things looked up at Zim expectantly, waiting for his soon-to-come explanation of what on... whatever this planet was, was happening.

Zim raised his gloved hands in the air dramatically.

"YOU ARE SO TINY! YOU MUST HAIL ZIM!" he demanded. "ZIM IS YOUR TALLEST!"

The creatures looked back and forth between one another, hopelessly confused. Zim sighed melodramatically and waved one hand around at the wrist.

"You see, among Irkens, the Tallest is the most powerful and here ZIM is the Tallest, so... never mind, it's too complicated. WORSHIP ZIM!"

The blobs cheered.

"Zim! Zim! Zim! Zim!"

The satisfied Irken twitched his antennae and and turned his head to the boiling pool of cruiser fuel, putting his finger to his lip in thought.

"I wonder..."

He promptly spit INTO the pond, causing it to roll and slosh a bit, then leaned forward in anticipation. One thing about science that he had learned during his time being a chemical engineer was that doing whatever the heck you wanted was fine as long as it was for science.

Or something.

A small, green shape began to form, slowly morphing into antennae, then two ruby red eyes. The blob eventually took complete form, appearing to be a tiny version of Zim himself.

"Papa?" it cooed.

Zim's new servants began to lunge forward in order to kill the "false Zim", but their leader held up a hand curiously to stop them. Being obedient as ever, they backed away.

Zim picked the little smeet up out of the ooze by the antennae and examined it. There was no PAK upon its back, and it's eye color perfectly matched Zim's own. It seemed to be a female, but it was difficult to tell with newborn smeets.

By this point, Zim's subjects had rapidly grown to be almost half GIR's size, hyper-evolving just as Zim had predicted. They looked on curiously at the little Zim, who was then handed to them awkwardly by the original. They followed their overlord obediently in his trek toward his downed spaceship, keeping up as best they could with their lack of proper feet to do so.

Zim looked cautiously behind him.

"Touch nothing, GIR! Who knows what consequences our touching-of-things could have!" he hissed.

Almost immediately after he said that, GIR cheekily squatted down to a tiny bush with some red and black beetles on it.

"LOOK AT THE LADYBUGS!" he shrieked excitedly. Zim whipped around in alarm.

"I SAID TOUCH NOTHING!" he repeated. GIR saluted, then promptly turned around and tapped one of the ladybugs with a "boop".

The beetle grew to twice GIR's size, wiggling its mandibles and hissing softly.

"GIRRRRRRR!" Zim fumed. The little, malfunctioning SIR unit just giggled as the other ladybugs enlarged to match the first's size around him.

"The ladybugs is REEEEEAL angry!"

One of the now humungous beetles flew atop the oblivious robot, hissing more loudly. GIR giggled maniacally.

"BUG HAT! AHAHAH! GET IT? I don't get it."

The ladybug screeched, spraying disgusting blue saliva everywhere. The others joined in, creating a noise so spine-chilling that it could send fifty Xlactians (known for their ferocity and strength in battle) running for the hills like terrified Earth rabbits.

Much to GIR's dismay, Zim shot his "bug hat" into oblivion with this PAK lasers, screaming, "AIIIGH! BUGS!"

This angered the other gigantic insects,, who began throwing themselves violently at the horrified Irken.

The smeet woke up from her slumber during all the commotion, adding her cries to the confusing mix of Zim's gunshots, the ladybugs' screeches, and GIR's wails of dismay at his friends being blown to heck.

Once every ladybug was nothing but a splatter on the forest floor, Zim was left with a screaming smeet, a sniffling GIR, and some overly loyal blob creatures bowing obediently at his feet.

"All hail Zim, destroyer of blerks!" they chanted.

Zim turned away momentarily from the tiny version of himself and gave them a nervous and slightly awkward smile.

"Yes, all hail me, destroyer of blarghswhatever. Go away now, tiny bean-things! The Voot Cruiser must be repaired so I can take Earth for Irk and obliterate humankind!"

A blob servant wearing a fedora turned to one of his companions, who was sporting a fancy top hat and monocle.

"Zim is most wise. If we are to thrive, we must find our own way independent of our leader. It will please the almighty Zim."

The monocle-wearer nodded in agreement.

"Yes, yes, very true."

Zim turned around, frustrated.

"SERIOUSLY, GO AWAY!" he demanded.

One servant dressed like a cowboy addressed his fellow blobs.

"Zim again is most wise. There is no thriving without going away. WE SHALL GO AWAY TO PLEASE ZIM!"

"ALL HAIL ZIM!" the rest chanted in unison, earning a facepalm and an aggravated growl from said Zim.

Suddenly, a series of screeches sounded from the skies, immediately alerting the Irken. He snapped his head up in surprise, and was met by a truly terrifying sight. The blerks had returned, seeking revenge for their fallen comrades. The blob-creatures screamed in terror, GIR just clapping happily to see his ladybug friends returning. The smeet, on the other hand, just continued on wailing.

"THE BUGS HAVE RETURNED!" Zim screeched, instinctively firing at the one nearest to him. Unfortunately though, the shot bounced right off its hard exoskeleton, instead burying itself in a nearby tree.

Zim tugged on his antennae, continuing to fire.

"They have developed a resistance to being destroyed! DEFEND ME, AMOEBA THINGS!"

His loyal servants set the screaming baby Zim on the forest floor, then selflessly threw themselves at the ensuing blerks to protect their leader, calling out, "Protect Zim at all costs!"

Unfortunately for them, their heroic acts were only rewarded with many of their own being destroyed. Insides sucked out, torn in half, you name it.

In all the confusion, Zim was able to grab ahold of his clone and dash behind one of the weapons that was thrown clear of the Voot during the crash. Thanks to the smeet's wails, Zim's superior hearing was becoming more of a disadvantage than much else. He pulled on his antennae in agony, trying and failing to calm the child down.

In his distraction, the blerks had descended on the Voot and began carrying it off, much to GIR's apparent excitement.

"They takin' the ship!" he squealed.

Zim looked up from the crying clone in the direction of GIR's pointing finger, to be met with his precious Voot Runner, far from his reach, drifting away in the clutches of the blerks.

"NOOOO! Come back here!" he begged, desperately reaching to the heavens. But it was no use. The giant ladybugs were long gone. The flustered Irken turned to his servants in a panic.

"Tiny blob-things! Go reacquire Zim's ship! I cannot return to Earth without it!"

They obediently scooted off into the woods, calling, "We obey!"

Zim nervously faced GIR, who was intently trying to shove a ginormous rock into his mouth.

"GIR!" The Irken cried. "Without the ship, I could be stuck on this planet FOR ETERNITY, and also you would be too but that's not as serious! And this planet is a Slorg's armpit! And-WILL YOU PLEASE STOP CRYING!"

He was referring, of course, to the smeet, who stopped crying for a moment all so her lip could quiver a bit and she could begin wailing even harder. Before Zim could yell at her again, the blobs returned sadly, hanging their nonexistent heads and now twice the size they were before.

"O great Zim!" they cried. "We have spent thousands of years attempting to reacquire your ship!"

Zim gave a confused sideways glance to GIR and his now silent clone.

"It's only been thirty seconds."

The blobs began crying their nonexistent eyes out.

"We are failures, o tall one!" one sobbed. "The blerks are too powerful for us to defeat! Their shells too strong! Their teeth to sharp!"

"OUR SHAME BURNS OUR SOULS!" lamented another.

Zim shoved GIR aside without a second thought.

"Yes, yes, shame and burning, but did you FIND my ship?"

The first blob looked up. "Yes, o lord of tallness! They took it to their hive, a five-hundred year trek THAT WAY!"

It pointed toward an area of seemingly endless forest.

Zim's antennae twitched in frustration.

"MUST I DO EVERYTHING MYSELF?" he lamented. GIR stood up off the ground, lovingly holding his pet in his metal arms.

Zim studied the squishy, blue and black slug, coming up with an idea almost immediately.

"I AM GENIUS! GIR, throw your slug into the ooze pond!"

GIR happily obliged.

 _ **Two minutes later**_

"ERRRRR... THIS IS USELESS!" Zim raged, stamping his boot on the grassy ground.

"How can it destroy my enemies with such tiny nub-arms!"

He gestured to the now freakishly gigantic slug, who was happily being hugged by a lovestruck GIR. The little smeet laughed, but it sounded a bit more like a hiccup than much else.

One of the blob servants nodded in agreement.

"Zim's wisdom is supreme. There is no victory with nubs."

Zim grumbled and sat down in frustration on top of one of his scattered weapons. Another thought suddenly popped into his brilliant mind.

"AH! I have another even _more_ amazing idea!"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxz

The planet's two moons slowly rose that night over a tunneled-out cave, illuminating the thousand or so blerks comfortably snuggled into the walls. After only about five minutes of rest, a giant slug poked its head over the ledge, being ridden by a very confident Irken, his SIR unit, and a tiny smeet laying in a cradle-like structure attached to the monstrous creature.

"Oh, hello there and also KABAMMM!" Zim laughed, violently obliterating every single blerk that came his way. A punch to the right, a shock blast though the chest to the left, it was total chaos. Fortunately for Zim, he was winning by light years.

Somehow, regardless of the violent movement of the slug creature, the plasma gunshots, and Zim's signature evil laugh, the tiny clone found a way to fall asleep, much to the original's relief.

Soon, nothing was left but giant ladybug monster guts and an Irken that was quite pleased with himself.

But then again, when was he not?

The ride back on the giant slug was quiet (finally), which meant Zim had some time to think to himself. Particularly about what he was going to do about this smeet of his. He couldn't just send it off to the academy; it wasn't old enough to receive a custom PAK that all naturally-born Irken children had to get when they grew large enough.

The Irken child turned over with a yawn, making Zim's antennae perk up. He glanced down to his clone, who was snoring softly and snuggling into the blankets made from tree leaves, which her father had given her since the planet's nights were so cold. A strange feeling overcame him, but he just couldn't make sense of it, so it was dismissed.

Soon the giant slug was dragging its way into the forest as Zim and GIR watched. The smeet, on the other hand, was still sleeping soundly in Zim's arms.

"I'll never forget you, Dennis!" GIR called cheerily, waving goodbye.

Zim pulled out his space-wrench eagerly.

"Now to repair my ship so we can FINALLY leave this horrid place!" he announced, turning around only to end up face to face with one of his blobby subjects. Well, more like face to foot, since his servants were now almost five times as tall as he was.

"Lord Zim. We repaired your chariot years ago when you first returned from the Blerk Wars of 15010," one explained majestically. Zim blinked and stepped backward a bit.

"You fixed my ship?"

The Tallest of the blobs nodded.

"Yes, many years ago when you hurt us so by destroying the blerks," it said.

"So, I can go whenever I-" he stopped, confused. "Wait... Zim hurt YOU? WHY?"

The blobs moves closer, causing Zim's antennae to flatten against his skull in alarm. He didn't realize it at the time, but he found himself protectively clutching the smeet in his arms.

"Because you did not destroy us! Did we displease you?" the tallest one whined, sounding hurt.

"Why did you not destroy us?" the others chanted in unison. They began to close in even more on the trembling Zim.

"You WANT me to destroy you?"

He looked around nervously, as the sheer size comparison was starting to set in.

"Wait-why are you all so tall?"

The huge one leaned in threateningly, the tone of his voice seeming to depict having been betrayed.

"Zim, since the beginning of time we have worshipped you and existed only to please you. Long we have dreaded the day you would inevitably leave us to achieve your higher destiny of Earth's destruction."

"So we hoped you would destroy us first," another blob chimed in.

"Because destruction pleases you so," the tallest one finished.

"AND WE ONLY WISH TO PLEASE ZIM!" the rest said simultaneously.

Zim crouched down as his PAK legs _sloooooowly_ edged out of his PAK, preparing to attack if necessary.

"S-seriously... why are you so tall? I SHOULD DESTROY YOU FOR GETTING SO TALL!"

The hugest one wobbled in excitement.

"YES! DESTROY US ZIM!"

The other blobs began chiming in with their own comments, like "All hail Zim!" and "Blow us up, Zim!"

One looked over at the others.

"Hold on. WHAT?"

Zim's antennae perked back to neutral, his PAK legs retreating calmly back into their container.

"Eh. Okay."

After pulling the cap off of an advanced-looking time bomb, he cheerily tossed the explosive over his shoulder with a "Here ya go!", giving he and his companions just enough time to escape.

Behind them, the entire planet, moons included, _exploded_ in a spectacular flash of light, sending quite beautiful rings of plasma spiraling outward. The tiny Zim clone, now awake, pressed her face against the windshield and looked on with wonder in her ruby eyes. Zim punched a few buttons on the ship's console.

"Victory!" he cheered triumphantly. "We now return to Earth, GIR, where we shall destroy-"

He froze and looked around him.

"You left the weapons on the exploding place!"

GIR giggled obliviously.

"Great. Now I have to come up with another INGENIOUS plan to take over the Earth!"

The smeet began sucking on her foot contently, capturing Zim's attention and causing him to realize something he hadn't thought about before.

If she was a perfect clone, why was she a " _she_ "?

It was easy to differentiate male and female Irkens because of their antennae and their eyes. Females has curled antennae and long eyelashes, while males had straight antennae that ended in a crook and virtually no eyelashes at all. This was thanks to the Control Brains, who got tired of scanning newborn smeets for gender identification.

Zim put the cruiser in autopilot and turned in his rotating chair. The smeet was sleeping soundly in the comfort of the passenger seat next to him, uttering soft purring noises that sounded oddly similar to an Earth cat. It was sort of a soothing sound, something that puts you at ease the moment you hear it.

Zim studied her more closely, how her perfect antennae curled into a flawless square shape, and her eyelashes...

Hey, that's weird...

Most female Irkens, some 99 out of 100, had eyelashes that ended in sort of a triangle shape, like Invader Tenn. The baby Zim, on the other hand, had sleek, reserved eyelashes that ended in only one point. They were highly unusual, and Zim had only ever met one Irken with eyelashes like hers.

 _Tak_.

His squeedilyspooch lurched. No. It couldn't be. This was ZIM'S smeet, and Zim's alone. No questions asked.

Suddenly, a metallic object hit the windshield, waking him up from his thoughts. It wasn't exactly clear what it was, but Zim already had a pretty good idea, unfortunately.

He nervously piloted two metal arm-like attachments toward the projectilet, being extra careful not to damage it. After the claws successfully grabbed the strange object, the metal was pulled into a small storage bay next to the pilot's seat. Sweating, Zim turned itt over in his gloved palm. It appeared to be a heaphone of sorts, attached to its host through a needle that basically hacked the antennae so they could hear the intercom as well as their usual surrounding sounds. Generally it was only used for high-rank soldiers, but the occasional communications officer or medical worker would own one.

But this specific transmitter was awfully familiar.

Tak again.

Tak had been on that planet.

Zim almost threw up the contents of his squeedilyspooch right then and there. He had just blown up his absolute mortal enemy (next to Dib of course) and hadn't even given her a chance to fight back. As much as he wanted to jump up and cheer in victory, Irkens had a tendency to let their prey squirm and try to escape before they were killed. Tak, on the other hand, was none the wiser that she was about to die. Zim didn't even get the chance to gloat in her face first.

He looked over to his clone again. Tak wasn't completely gone. The smeet had her lashes. Her beauty mark. Actually, Tak had quite a few qualities about her that were highly unusual among Irkens. Her purple eyes, for example. Only about 30% of Irkens had violet as their eye color. Too bad Tak was the enemy, she actually might have made a good invader. Not as good as Zim, of course.

An alarm beeped on the monitor.

 _"PROXIMITY WARNING. PLANET AHEAD."_

Zim looked up in front of the cruiser, where the insignificant and stupid planet Earth was located. Regardless of how much he hated the planet and its inhabitants, the swirling blue display of Earth somehow managed to captivate him every single time.

It was ironic, to say the least.

 **A/N: OHMYTALLEST that was long! Sorry to you slow readers out there but I wanted to complete the actual comic portion in the first chapter so the people who have read it already didn't know what was coming beforehand and get bored.**

 **Also, this story is entirely finished in my notebook and the only thing I have to do on each chapter is revise and edit it. In fact, I've already started work on a sequel.**

 **Feel free to give me some criticism, good or bad, because the whole idea of writing this kind of stuff is so I can get better at it.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hello again! I don't have a lot to say this time around, other than that this chapter is going to be significantly shorter than the first. Hopefully this'll serve as a more realistic length for the future**.

 **Yes, I am aware that it isn't Sunday.**

* * *

Chapter 2

As the Voot gracefully hovered into the roof of Zim's base and made a soft landing in the attic, Zim couldn't help but wonder why _his_ clone contained some of _Tak's_ DNA. He pulled the smeet out of the cockpit, being extra careful not to wake her up.

"Computer!" he called.

" _WHAAAAT_ ," the computer droned, sarcastic as ever.

"What does the Voot Cruiser run on?"

There was a sort of beeping noise, and an image of the cruiser popped up on the gigantic monitor attached to the wall. It zoomed into the fuel tank, revealing some labels in Irken writing.

"The fuel of the average Voot Cruiser runs by combining with its environment," Zim read aloud. "There have been instances of fuel mixing with foreign planets and hyper-evolving them."

He rolled his eyes (which was pretty hard, considering his lack of pupils) and huffed.

"I knew that already! You are insulting the amazing mind of ZIM! Computer!"

" _UGH. WHAT NOW_?"

"Scan this."

He held up the still sleeping smeet, his antennae twitching in aggravation.

A few more beeps sounded, and the image of the Voot was replaced by a 3D model and analysis of the baby Irken. Zim placed her on the floor and read the info out loud to himself.

"No identification, similar to two other DNA signatures..."

Underneath that line, Zim and Tak's names were listed one on top of the other.

So it was true.

The sleeping smeet on the floor of his lab was he and Tak's child.

Zim shook his head to clear that thought from his mind, causing his antennae to wave around. No, that was a bit of a stretch. A more likely scenario would be that the fuel, to create a clone, required a male and female parent, and Tak had interacted with that specific spot earlier.

 _Flashback_

 _A purple-eyed Irken ran on her PAK legs through an entirely lifeless planet, sweating profusely and screaming at the top of her lungs. A small, modified SIR unit followed close behind, slamming it's gigantic fist into the ground at random intervals. Every once in a while it would turn around to fire at their pursuer, but for the most part ran along with its master._

 _"MIMI!" the Irken screeched, her soft British accent vanishing in the midst of her raised voice. "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"_

 _She turned for a minute to fire in a backwards direction, then returned to running for her life._

 _"WHY ON IRK WOULD YOU TRY AND STEAL FOOD FROM A BURROWING SHLORK MONSTER?!"_

 _Mimi shrugged and tripped over her own foot, recovering clumsily._

 _Tak made a sort of "UUGH!" noise, shaking her head. Ever since that idiot Zim's stupid robot had taken over her own, Mimi had begun making constant mistakes, such as knocking their temporary base over and being the one to get them stranded on this horrible planet in the first place, thanks to her disproportionate fist._

 _Two of Tak's PAK legs crossed, tripping her up and forcing her into the ground. She yipped in alarm, instinctively throwing her hands up in front of her face to protect it. While she did avoid getting a concussion, her headphone instead detached and flew off, burying itself in a pile of dirt a few feet over._

 _As the creature slithered closer and closer, towering over Tak, she uselessly scrambled to get up. With a growl of aggravation, the worm-like beast stood at its full height over her, some 20 or 25 feet, salivating angrily._

 _Guess it didn't like being Tak's personal test subject._

 _It leaned in closer to her, to where the snarling and hissing worked it's way into her very soul, forcing her heart to beat along. Tak just backed up as much as she could, which was hard thanks to her dizziness and wounded PAK legs._

 _Just as the Shlork monster reared back to strike, Mimi came flying in out of nowhere and punched it in one of its hundreds of randomly placed eyes, causing it to howl in pain and experience a moment of distraction. This allowed Mimi to heave her master up onto her PAK legs and give her an encouraging push._

 _"WHAT... TOOK YOU SO LONG?!" Tak screamed between desperate gasps of air. Mimi shrugged again._

 _The Shlork monster had already recovered and begun chasing them again, showing absolutely no sign of exhaustion. Tak silently wished she could say the same for herself. Her metal spider legs had been faltering a bit, and she was sweating buckets. It was only really a matter of time before her body gave out entirely and fed her to that horrible beast thing._

 _Just as that finally happened, her PAK legs freezing and her antennae shooting straight up in alarm, Mimi turned suddenly and transformed her hand into a ginormous sword, using said sword to impale the Shlork monster right through the chest. It froze, quivered for a moment, then fell over in a heap with a final groan. Tak swallowed and turned to her robot servant._

 _"Why didn't you do that earlier?!"_

 _End Flashback_

Yeah, that made sense. When Zim spat into the pond, it must have interacted with Tak's DNA and produced the smeet.

...The smeet.

Zim knew he couldn't just call her "the smeet" or "the clone" forever, he had to come up with a name and contact the Tallest so they could register her with the control brains and get her a PAK. Without it, she wouldn't live all that long and would be significantly weaker in terms of fighting ability.

At first he experimented with combining he and Tak's names, which failed. "Tim" was a _HYOOMAN_ name, and "Zak" sounded too much like the title of an Irken male.

Next, he tried the names of previous Irkens, which was generally how it was done.

Rane... Spark... Min...

...no...

He actually ended up narrowing it down to either "Levi" or "Nny", but decided to drop both names. They just weren't right.

He twitched his antennae and stretched, smacking his lips tiredly. He was going to have to come up with an original name, a strategy that was seldom used on Irk.

The few Irkens who ever _did_ produce a smeet naturally would generally name it after an object. The most famous of these smeets was Invader Quark, known for being the only invader to conquer a planet during Operation Impending Doom I. He was also the only naturally-born Irken to ever become an invader. "Celebrity" was an understatement.

Zim twiddled his six fingers in thought. Petra? Nova?

He looked around the room aimlessly, until his eyes eventually settled on two wires standing upright on his desktop with an energy beam running up between them, measuring the smeet's heartbeat. He recalled a time when Dib, who he rarely listened to, had rattled on and on about some dead human named Nikola Tesla.

Tesla...

He looked over at he and Tak's child. Yes, "Tesla" would do nicely. Zim even believed the 'T' would be a suitable tribute to her deceased mother. Not that he cared, or anything.

He pulled out her headphone - which he had discreetly tucked away in his PAK - and turned it over in his gloved hands a few times. After a quick decision, he stuck it on the newly-named Tesla. She opened her ruby eyes and stared up at him in irritation, clearly confused about why on Irk her father was putting a needle into her head. She didn't complain though, instead toddling over to him and plopping down at his boots with a squeak-purr noise.

Zim typed away at his keyboard, ignoring the attention-seeking Tesla at his feet. Eventually Tallest Red and Purple's faces appeared on the monitor, staring expectantly down at him.

" _What is is NOW, Zim_?" Tallest Red yawned, popping a chocolate mini-donut into his mouth.

Zim wiggled his antennae in salute.

"My Tallest, I have contacted you to-"

" _Lemme guess, tell us one of your 'ingenious' plans_ ," Tallest Purple deadpanned, then took a large gulp of what looked to be an Irken version of soda.

"Actually, no sirs. I have contacted you to file a biologically produced smeet identification."

Purple promptly spit his soda all over Red, who was too busy choking on his donut to notice.

" _WHAT_?!" they exclaimed in unison.

At that exact moment, Tesla decided it was a good time to figure out how to climb onto the console, wriggling her little legs like an Earth puppy trying to get up the stairs. She giggled at the sight of the shocked Tallest staring at her with their mouths hanging open.

Purple pulled Red frantically out of the view of the camera, sweating profusely.

" _Biological reproduction?! Do people even do that anymore_?" he hissed.

Red swallowed a lump in his throat and poked his head back into the shot.

" _Uh, Zim?_ " he asked nervously.

"Yes, my Tallest?"

Red looked to Purple for help, but he was busy slurping most of his drink into his mouth in order to avoid having to talk.

" _Who...who's the mother_?"

Zim fidgeted, trying to keep his antennae from shaking.

"Tak, sirs."

Purple did another spit take, getting a response from Zim in the form of waving his arms around frantically.

"No, sirs! Not like that! It appears my ship's fuel has combined our DNA and created... Tesla here," he explained hurriedly, gesturing to the smeet on the desktop, who giggled happily at the sound of her name.

Red sighed in relief.

" _Can we talk to Tak_?"

Zim rubbed the back of his neck guiltily.

"She's... dead, my Tallest."

Red leaned in close to the camera, his antennae pulled backward.

" _WHAT DID YOU DO?_ " he demanded.

Purple looked down.

" _I liked Tak. She sent us snacks_ ," he murmured quietly.

Zim, his antennae flattened in guilt, studied his boots.

"I... blew up a planet," he admitted. "Tak was on it."

Purple smiled nervously.

" _Well, that doesn't mean she's_ dead, _right? Maybe she survived!_ "

Red sent him a glare that could burn a hole through solid rock.

Tesla, oblivious to the current situation, looked up at her Tallest. Since she didn't have a PAK, she was not yet programmed to respect Red and Purple, or even know who they were. She had, though, heard her father say the _word_ "Tallest" constantly. She suddenly got a determined look on her face and began babbling.

Zim and the Tallest stopped their argument to turn to Tesla for a moment with confused looks on their faces.

"Tah-buh-bu-tuh..."

"Aww..." Purple gushed, locking his hands together and holding them to his heart. "It's kinda cute."

"Tah-Tah-luh..."

Red cocked an antennae in confusion.

"TALLEST!" she finally finished.

All the anger drained from Red's body. Something about this tiny little Irken's first word being "Tallest" just melted his heart.

"Tallest!" Tesla repeated, infinitely proud of herself.

"Tallest! Tallest!"

Red shook his head and cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure.

" _Er- you... said her name was Tesla, right? I need her eye color so I can get her a uniform and PAK_."

Zim blinked in surprise. "Ruby."

Purple was practically a puddle on the floor, so it was Red who was doing all the talking.

" _Expect the shipment in... thirty-six hours-_ "

That's when GIR decided it was a good time to come flying in out of nowhere and punch the "terminate call" button into oblivion. Zim looked over at Tesla and sighed. He picked her up and held her sort of awkwardly, just as awkwardly as you'd imagine a person who has never come in contact with a child would hold them.

She responded to this by snuggling into his chest and making a sort of content gurgling noise. That's odd, she seemed heavier than before...

Zim looked back up at the monitor, which was now back to displaying Tesla's body scan. Underneath her foot was a simple message:

 _GROWTH RATE : RAPID_

It made sense. Those blob thingies were hyper-evolving, maybe the same thing was happening to Tesla. Usually naturally-born Irkens wouldn't even come close to walking and talking so quickly.

Once, he had found some random magazine shoved into a booth seat at Schloogorgh's on Foodcourtia. Having nothing better to do, he had locked himself in the bathroom and flipped through it. The title read _Smeets for Beginners_. He never imagined he would require such ridiculous information, but it appeared he had been mistaken.

Zim being mistaken, imagine that.

He concentrated hard, trying to remember the articles listed in the handbook. Once or twice it had mentioned that, even though fully grown Irkens didn't require sleep, naturally-born Irkens needed to rest and regain their energy to make up for the missing PAK.

Supposedly, simply holding them and rocking back and forth was enough to do the job. Unfortunately, Zim was about as coordinated as a scary chihuahua on roller skates when it came to taking care of a child, especially a tired one that won't stop repeating the word "Tallest".

"Tallest!" Tesla clapped, bouncing up and down. "Tallest! Tallest!"

Zim sighed, frustrated, and once more shifted his clone into a lying position, causing her to whine and try to push his hands away. _She_ wasn't tired, but Zim sure was.

After half and hour of trying to get Tesla to sleep, he eventually gave up and placed her on one of the medical tables, tucking her into a blanket of cotton that GIR had found in... well, you don't wanna know where.

Of course she STILL didn't sleep, crying every 30 seconds for attention from her father. He didn't necessarily _need_ to rest, but with the constant running around and attending to his clone's needs, he was more exhausted than he had ever been in his entire _lifetime_. All night she would cry, causing him to sprint across the house in order to shut her up.

GIR wasn't helping at all, as usual. Instead, he was watching The Scary Monkey Show and laughing obnoxiously every two seconds. Zim felt like he was going insane.

Eventually, he just ended up standing tiredly next to Tesla's bed, yawning and waiting for her to wake once more and begin crying. When she did, he would pick her up and hold her until she fell asleep for the time being.

An alarm beeped from above, getting an exhausted reaction of tilting his head up slowly.

" _TOMORROW IS MONDAY, SIR_ ," the computer reminded him.

Zim cautiously stepped away from the sleeping smeet, waiting to see her reaction, then walked up to his monitor. She needed a disguise so he could bring her to Skool, not to mention a cover story.

For her disguise, Zim eventually settled on a wig with tiny blonde pigtails and a pink one-piece with the words "Daddy's girl" written in embroidered letters on the front. He also grabbed one of his extra pairs of purple contacts for her.

Once her disguise was prepared, he finally got a chance to fall into a few light slumbers, waking every so often to take care of his demanding daughter.

* * *

 **A/N: Phew. I finished this one pretty quickly and I hope that didn't affect the quality too much. I've been working on a separate story (possibly with the same continuity) that my little sister came up with, demanding that we work on it EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Hopefully I'll be able to manage more than one fic, but I might just end up postponing one so I can finish the other. Hopefully not, though.**

 **Okay, now that the boring part is out of the way, it's time for the even MORE boring part! This is probably going to be one of the only chapters with a lot of continuity, I'm intending this to be sort of like Steven Universe where it starts out lighthearted and forms into a story arc. I don't know for sure, though. Maybe if I get enough reviews, follows, and favorites I'll post a poll or something...**

 **Hint, hint**.

 **Also, I think I'm going to start thanking each of my reviewers, favoriters, and followers on the actual FIC as well as privately. If you don't want this, tell me.**

 **Thanks to Zim'sMostLoyalServant, mimacaron2002, J-wolf7, SolemnGlory, and Invader Johnny!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Special thanks to Rocky Rooster and Zim'sMostLoyalServant for giving me an idea for the opening scene. This never occurred to me until I read your reviews.**

 **Sorry if this one seems too short, I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly how long I want my chapters. I'll improve on this at some point. Plus, all my teachers just spontaneously decided to ALL GIVE ME HOMEWORK OVER THE SAME WEEKEND.**

 **Wake me from this _nightmare_.**

* * *

Chapter 3

"Come on, you little twerp! Zim is losing his patience!"

The small Irken stalked through the house, lifting things up and turning things over. The house was like, 80 square feet! Where could she possibly be hiding?

Tesla, the moment she had heard that they were going to skool, had screamed and ran for her life, managing to escape from her father for over an hour. Now she was hiding somewhere, and Zim was getting frustrated at not knowing where.

"GIR! Minimoose!"

The two little robots zipped up to meet their master in the living room.

" _Yeeeeeeees_?" GIR asked.

Minimoose squeaked questioningly.

"Track Tesla's bio-signature!'

"NYEH?" Minimoose chirped.

"Well- how should I know why I didn't do that earlier?! DO NOT QUESTION THE AMAZING MIND OF ZIM!"

GIR saluted and spun his head around in circles, stopping abruptly.

"BIO-SIGNATURE [TESLA] FOUND. She under the table!"

Zim turned toward the kitchen and reached a PAK leg underneath the tablecloth, dragging out a very much ticked off Tesla. She grabbed onto a table leg in a desperate attempt to avoid having to go to skool, only to end up in the middle of a tug-of-war with her father. He pulled as hard as he could, but she was holding on for dear life.

 _She's the size of a rat! How can she be this strong?!_

Finally, with one final _heeeeaaave,_ he managed to pull the wriggling child into his arms. She squirmed and growled like a wild animal, but he somehow managed to put on her disguise, causing a reaction similar to holding a cat by its tail. She began struggling even harder, soon getting to the point of escaping Zim's grasp. He reached out to catch her again, but she had already made it halfway across the house on all fours. _Great._

After another hour, Zim had managed to lure Tesla out of the ventilation system with a donut from GIR's head and gotten her to calm down. If he had to do this again every weekday, he was gonna go insane.

* * *

Dib (Yes Dib, he exists, remember?) woke up the next morning feeling energized and ready for the day. He cheerily hopped out of bed and pulled on his classic shirt and black trench coat, humming a lighthearted song to himself.

Gaz was already in the dining room, playing Game Slave 2 and angrily shoveling spoonfuls of Sugar Chunks Cereal into her mouth.

Nothing out of the ordinary there.

Dib plopped down next to his probably homicidal sister and poured his own bowl with a flourish. Even when Gaz later threw it in his face, he was unfazed. Today was gonna be awesome. He could _feel_ it.

He started off on his walk to school, occasionally shooting a finger gun or two to some disgusted-looking girls. This didn't bother him though, he just kept on strolling down the sidewalk, whistling an awfully familiar tune.

When he sauntered into the classroom, he was met with utter chaos ensuing. Ms. Bitters was watching a building burn to the ground on some sort of hovering tablet, Torque was giving random people noogies, Keef was making a friendship bracelet with Zim's name on it, and a few others were swinging around and making monkey noises.

Oddly enough, the only classmate that was behaving was...

 _Zim?_

Dib rubbed his eyes underneath his glasses. Zim was quietly reading a book in a whisper and holding something in his lap.

The big-headed boy edged forward cautiously, squinting in order to see better. The weird thing in Zim's lap had little blonde pigtails, two big, purple eyes, and... green skin?

 _Oh, holy dookie. Zim's got a kid._

The small child drew her attention away from the picture book and toward Dib, then giggled and mumbled, "Giant head."

Dib stamped his foot.

" _ZIM_!" he yelled. "What is this?! Another one of your EVIL SCHEMES?! Well you _KNOW_ I'm gonna stop you! AND MY HEAD'S NOT BIG!"

Zim sneered at him and put a hand on the little girl's head.

"Ah, the Dib-stink. It's so horrible to see you," he hissed.

Dib pointed at the child in his lap dramatically.

"What's that, Zim?! A robot?! A _SLAVE_?!"

Zim narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by the bell to begin class. Ms. Bitters reluctantly put away the hover-tablet and folded her hands over her desk.

"SIDDOWN!" she rasped. "UNLESS YOU WANT TO SUFFER A HORRIBLE AND PAINFUL DEATH!"

Dib huffed and walked to the other side of the classroom, kicking a pencil on the way over. Zim placed the book on the floor, receiving a pout and a whine from Tesla.

"Zim," Ms. Bitters drawled. "Why is it that you felt the need to bring a child into the classroom? Everyone knows children are disgusting."

Zim closed his eyes and tilted his head up knowingly.

"She is a service animal," he stated simply.

The terrifying teacher sighed and turned to the blackboard dismissively.

"Whatever."

Dib held his arms out in front of him, making a "what the actual heck" face.

"Today's lesson will be addressing the topic of Earth's insignificance in the universe," Ms. Bitters began.

Zim pumped his fist.

"Yessssss!" he hissed excitedly.

Dib rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. Why was it that Zim always got away with everything? Were people _really_ that stupid?

...It was a rhetorical question.

He glanced over at Tesla unconsciously, met with some behavior that nearly made him laugh out loud.

She was acting as any normal human child would, repeatedly trying to eat Zim's crayons but being stopped every time.

Well, _almost_ every time.

Eventually Zim got tired of it and pulled a cyber-binkie out of his backpack thing, popping it into Tesla's mouth. She silenced and laid back comfortably on her exasperated father, who rubbed his temples and sighed tiredly.

Obviously he had no idea what he was doing because Tesla snuck another crayon into her mouth while he wasn't looking.

Frankly, the question was _why_? Why would Zim care enough about anything to have a kid? If she _wasn't_ a kid, then why did she act like one?

...And why did she look so much like Tak?

Suddenly the realization hit him like a sock full of frozen butter. The eyelashes, the green skin, the beauty mark, it all made sense. Tesla was the child of the only two Irkens he had ever met.

 _Gross._

Zim snapped his fingers in front of Dib's face, waking him from his thoughts.

"Huh? What?"

"Are you deaf, Dib-stink? It's time for the vomit-fest you people call 'lunch'."

Dib shook his head and got up from his seat, staring intently at Tesla. She just waved at him in a friendly manner, receiving a quiet scold from her father for "conversing with the enemy".

* * *

Zim glared down at the cafeteria food in front of him, utterly disgusted. Would it KILL them to serve a Super-shmoop every once in a while?

Tesla had already gotten bored of the binkie and was now fiddling with the headphone attached to her little green forehead. She had to do it in secret, though, because it was a bit of a sore subject with her father.

Dib angrily plopped himself across from the Irken, who rolled his eyes and held his head in one hand sarcastically.

"The Dib-human. What do _you_ want?"

The boy shoveled a scoop of beans into his mouth.

"You know why I'm here," he spat. Literally. His mouthful of beans was landing on Zim's skin and causing it to sizzle and smoke a little. He wiped the cursed things off his face and narrowed his eyes.

"I have many superior abilities, Dib-creature, but mind reading is not one of them."

Dib pointed a reproachful finger at Tesla.

" _That_! Drop the act, Zim! I know that you and Tak are together now! Give it up and face the consequences!"

Zim choked on nothing and gritted his teeth.

"Tak and I are _not_. Together."

"Then how do you explain your 'service animal'? You ARE with her, aren't you?"

"AM NOT!"

"ARE TOO!"

"NO!"

"YES!"

"NO!"

"YES!"

"YES!"

"NO- hey, wait!"

Zim smiled a zipper-toothed smile and threw his "food" tray into Dib's face with a sneer. Picking Tesla up, he followed the other students filing out to the playground, but not before sending a tongue-out over his shoulder. Gaz showed up out of nowhere and shoved Dib's face into his own tray, chuckling to herself. Dib sighed.

* * *

At recess, Zim was suddenly the most popular kid at the skool. Or rather, Tesla was. Everyone was crowding around her like Earth penguins in the arctic, making gushy comments like, "She's so cute!" and "Can I hold her?"

The little smeet's hyper-evolution had already developed her enough to walk and even talk a little, and she was absolutely _loving_ the attention. It was good for Zim too, because the crowds wouldn't let Dib through to pester him _and_ it was a way to entertain Tesla while he took a much-needed breather.

The Irken watched he and Tak's clone silently. A strange thought began to well up in his mind, which he attempted to push away and ignore. Unfortunately for him, this only resulted in a pounding headache and a short-circuit in his PAK, which hurt like _Irk_. It felt like something was violently electrocuting him from the inside out, working its way through each and every one of his veins. He doubled over in pain, feeling like he was going to throw up. By the time it eventually passed, the bell was ringing to call the children inside.

He shook his aching head (being careful not to let his wig fall off) and grabbed Tesla's tiny hand in order to lead her into the building. Dib managed to jog up to them on the way there.

"I thought Irkens were cloned!" he called.

Zim turned around reproachfully.

"How did you know that?"

"I... listened in on a few of your conversations with 'the Tallest'," Dib admitted.

Zim sighed and pinched his temples with his free hand.

"Do you recall Tak?" he inquired, giving up on resisting the boy's questions.

"I already know, Zim. She's the mother, isn't she?"

Zim flinched, debating on whether or not he should give him a straight answer.

"...Yes. Tak is the mother."

Dib threw up in his mouth a little after the confirmation. The idea of Zim doing... _anything_ , really with Tak was beyond gross.

"But if you are suggesting that I have become infatuated with her, you are incorrect, as usual."

"So like, a one-night stand?"

Zim started and whipped around quickly.

"WHAT?! Are you insane?!"

He stopped.

"Oh wait, you are."

Dib frowned.

"No, Dib-human. The fuel of my ship combined with the organics of a foreign planet that Tak just so _happened_ to be on."

"Where is she? B-back on Earth?"

Dib shuddered at the thought of Tak returning to his planet to screw everything all up again. She was a _way_ better Invader than Zim, after all.

Zim spat in the mud.

"If she was, SHE would be the one taking care of this INFERNAL child!"

Before Dib could bombard the Irken with more questions, they arrived at Ms. Bitters' classroom.

The rest of the day proved uneventful, aside from Tesla's random crying fit in the middle of class. Turned out all she wanted was to be rocked to sleep.

Zim _himself_ even fell asleep a few times, which was totally alien (pun intended) to Dib because Zim _never_ slept. Saying he was intrigued was a fantastic understatement. If there was one thing he enjoyed more than cryptid hunting, it was learning the secrets of Irken biology. Unfortunately for the exhausted father, Ms. Bitters' method of waking him was to set off an air horn directly in front of his face. It didn't help that an Irken's hearing is twelve times better than a human's.

When Zim got home with his little clone, he told GIR and Minimoose to take her to bed and promptly flopped onto the couch. Irkens didn't NEED sleep to survive, but the exhaustion of taking care of Tesla and handling the Dib-human's constant questions was enough to send his PAK into an unexpected rest cycle.

* * *

 **(A/N): Okay, so I got 6 reviews for chapter two and I hereby declare that enough to run a poll on the future structure of the story. I already have it set up in my profile.**

 **So my computer did this weird thing where every time I'd type Ms. Bitters' name, it would delete it for no apparent reason. If there's a random out-of-context phrase anywhere, I missed one.**

 **No one called out the JTHM reference in chapter 2! What's up with that?!**

 **Thanks to Scarecrow345, clown2107, Rocky Rooster, KanadeAkatsuki13, and CawAreYouDoin!**


	4. Intermission

I just want to apologize for the delay I'm about to give you (don't hate me please) because I absolutely DESPISED how this week's chapter turned out. It's probably so darn bad because of the ridiculous amount of homework I had to get done.

What is it with teachers and scheduling all the due dates for the same day?!

I mean, I don't need my reputation ruined.

Instead, I'm going to explain the plot of my pending fic, known as Challenger Approaching.

It's an Invader Zim FanFic about an OC named Iggith, who comes from a planet known as Blark. The Blarkens are eventually ranked to be explorers (the equivalent of Invaders without the actual domination) of uncharted planets, in order to gather information on possible allies. They do this because their planet is so small and insignificant that they feel they will die out if they do not make some positive relationships with other planets. By chance, Iggith is assigned to Earth with a hyperactive lieutenant named Ricochet.

Basically Iggith makes his way to Earth and goes to skool, only to discover another alien there as well, Zim. They form an instant rivalry, since Iggith truly enjoys Earth and sees it as an opportunity rather than a place to conquer.

Sorry, but it won't follow the continuity of Primordial Space Ooze: Alternate Ending. I just don't need all that crap to put up with.

This fic was all my little sister's idea, and each chapter is revised from her journal rather than mine. She's a pretty good writer for her age.

I'm gonna finish this "chapter" with a list of possible fics I'll write in the future.

1.A choose-your-own Invader Zim adventure starring you as either a kid at skool or an Irken offered the opportunity to overthrow Irk rather than Zim.

2.A Transformers fanfic (already completed in my journal) involving mainly an OC duo known as Headshot and Wisp. Wisp is a previously abused bot, forced to remain at the side of a maniac known as Headlock. Headshot is her rescuer and protector, basically. He has also never missed a plasma blast fire in his entire life.

Zim/Lilo and Stitch crossover (also completed). I'm not a fan of writing crossovers, so this one probably won't ever see the light of day.

I hope you guys understand the delay; I'll try to update before next Sunday but no promises. Also, this chapter will be taken down once the next is posted.

See you then!


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Guys! I need more voters! I'll keep the poll open for like, a month, so get on that!**

 **Also, I just got into Eddsworld! If you haven't checked that out yet, you won't regret doing so.**

* * *

"Zim," Ms. Bitters drawled.

Zim unenthusiastically looked up from playing with his pencil and cocked a nonexistent eyebrow.

"Are you coming to Parent Teacher Night tonight?"

The surprised Irken promptly fell off his chair, forgetting a bout the fact that Tesla was still in his lap. She toppled onto the floor, bursting out in tears.

Zim stood up hurriedly and fixed his wig, pointing an accusing finger at his teacher.

"WHAT MADNESS DO YOU SPEAK, WRINKLED HUMAN?!"

Ms. Bitters, apparently not noticing the loud sobs from Tesla, narrowed her eyes with a hiss.

"Parent Teacher Night is tonight. If you had been listening, you would know that _your_ psychopathic maniacs of parents have been banned due to involvement in a poke trauma case," she growled.

"But-" Zim began to protest.

"SHUT IT!" Ms. Bitters rasped. Cicada noises sounded from somewhere.

Zim quickly shut it, picking up his sobbing child and sitting back down with a pout.

So if his robot parents were banned, who was he supposed to bring to the nightmare fuel known as Parent Teacher Night? He couldn't possibly make _more_ , it was too short notice.

Suddenly, he got an idea.

* * *

"Skoodge!"

Invader Skoodge, displayed on a transmission screen, smiled and waved cheerily.

"Hiya, Zim!" he chirped. "You need somethin'?"

Zim adjusted his collar and brushed his antennae back smoothly.

"It appears I require your services as my replacement guardian," he explained matter-of-factly.

Tesla, at her father's feet, was practicing walking with her arms spread out to the sides like airplane wings.

"So... you need my help?" Skoodge mocked.

Zim grumbled.

"I... wouldn't put it that way."

"I sure would. Admit it Zim, you need me to help you."

"No."

Tesla's feet crossed over one another, causing her to fall over and land smack! on the floor.

Skoodge started.

"What was that?"

His fellow Irken sighed in defeat and picked up his daughter to show him.

"This is Tesla. My... daughter."

Skoodge stared slack-jawed at the smeet before him. He had heard rumors about her on Irk, but it's not like he was gullible enough to _believe_ them. What were the chances that Zim, the sole destroyer of half his own home planet, would care enough about anyone or any _thing_ to have a _child_?

And yet there she was.

Skoodge went from shocked to excited in a millisecond.

"Holy _Irk_ , she's so cute!" he gushed. "Congratulations!"

Zim crossed his arms.

"You say that as if it's a good thing," he scoffed.

Skoodge's expression fell, and he glanced behind him toward the bustling Irken streets in the background.

He looked back and did an arm salute.

"See you soon, ol' buddy!"

Zim cringed painfully.

* * *

At the exact moment Zim and Tesla arrived on the ground floor, the doorbell rang.

"INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT."

How practical.

He flung open the door, faced with a grinning ex-invader Skoodge.

"How's it goin'?" he chirped, wiggling his antennae happily.

...his antennae?

Zim panicked, grabbing Skoodge around the wrist and throwing him inside, making the former invader to topple onto the floor with an "Oof!"

"Where's your disguise?" he hissed. "And how'd you get here so fast?"

Skoodge shrugged, getting up off the ground and brushing the dust from his uniform.

"Those humans sure didn't seem to notice," he commented.

* * *

 _A Spittle Runner landed in a large park, receiving curious head turns from a few passerby. One small kid, while sucking on a lollipop bigger than his own head, stepped up to it and curiously knocked three times on the windshield. With a hiss, the glass lifted up to reveal Invader Skoodge._

 _"Er- um... hi!" Skoodge greeted nervously._

 _The kid removed the lollipop from his mouth._

 _"Are you an aaaalien?" he asked innocently._

 _"Um, nope. No alien here," Skoodge lied._

 _The kid stared at him suspiciously for about a whole minute, then squeaked, "Okay!" and walked away nonchalantly. The onlookers returned to their everyday business without a second thought._

* * *

Tesla hiccuped, interrupting his random out-of-the blue flashback. After turning his head to look in curious confusion, he gasped and captured her in a crushing bear hug, babbling on and on about how adorable she was.

"Say Uncle Skoodge! Say it!" he gushed.

"U-Uncle Tttthhhhhkoodge!" Tesla squealed, earning a cheer of delight and an even tighter hug from her self-proclaimed "uncle".

Zim cleared his throat to get their attention, to no prevail. The pair were too busy giggling and messing around to notice.

"Who's my cute little smeetheart? You are! You are!"

Zim clapped his hands with a "Hellooooo?"

No response.

Tesla put her hands on Skoodge's face and squished it around, which was the absolute pinnacle of comedy to a smeet. She burst out in giggles, Skoodge soon doing the same.

Zim snatched his daughter away from his fellow Irken, glaring at him with distaste.

"In case you have forgotten, we have a Parent Teacher Night to show up to," he chided angrily.

The scene at Parent Teacher Night was nearly identical to the first, with one added detail. Mrs. Slunchy was glancing around the room in terror, a nervous tic in her eye.

Poke trauma can do things to a person.

At the sound of someone sipping a cup of punch, she whipped around in horror, ready to run for her life. Her horror still don't go away when she found out what it really was. She was watching... waiting for that terrible green kid and his parents.

Oh, the horror.

Zim chose that exact moment to burst through the door with his usual swagger, which was difficult thanks to the fact that Tesla was balanced on his hip. Skoodge trailed close behind the two, sporting a disguise consisting of a black wig almost exactly like Zim's and a pair of mismatched blue and brown contacts (one of each color had gone missing).

Mrs. Slunchy dropped her punch and ran out of the room screaming.

The ex-invader looked across the room at the refreshments table, mouth watering.

"You know, Zim," he commented lazily. "I've never tasted human food before."

"Consider yourself lucky," Zim scoffed, fixing Tesla's position on his side. "I couldn't tell you how many times I have vomited violently after eating such... such... FILTH!"

At that last word, his gag reflex activated, leaving Skoodge to wander around as he pleased.

In other words, the refreshment table.

Dib, from the other side of the room, turned around in boredom from his conversation with Mr. Principal Man and his delusional family. Mostly the conversation involved Gaz's issue with playing video games during class, but he was using code words since he was so terrified of her. Nothing really out of the ordinary there.

Suddenly, a beam of light from one of the overhead lights reflected off of Skoodge's glasses in a wink, catching Dib's eye.

Man, that's a terrible disguise.

Mainly Zim's "sibling"'s disguise involved square glasses and mismatched blue and brown eye contacts, plus a wig almost identical to Zim's.

He had never seen this specific Irken before, the only ones he had ever met were Zim, Tak, the 'Tallest', and Tesla. This one looked a bit different than the rest, shorter and chubbier.

He also didn't appear to be disgusted by Earth food, judging by the fact that he was trying his hardest not to devour the entire refreshment table.

The wannabe paranormal investigator excused himself from the mundane conversation and stalked off to question Skoodge, putting on his best "scary interrogator" voice.

Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned.

"Okay, alien scum! Who are you? What are you?!" he demanded.

Skoodge promptly burst out laughing, much to the dismay of his interrogator. Turns out pre-pubescent voice cracks aren't very intimidating.

"Hey! I'm trying to be terrifying here!"

This only made Skoodge giggle even harder, falling to the floor in a fit of roaring laughter.

The other children heard this and assumed someone was just laughing at Dib like usual, joining in and pointing their fingers at him for good measure.

Dib went red in the face, slinking away back to his family in embarrassment.

Zim came walking up next to the still giggling Skoodge, cocking his head and placing Tesla on the refreshment table next to him.

"What was that all about?" he inquired, pointing a confused finger toward Dib's direction on travel.

Skoodge just grinned and rubbed his hand on his uniform.

"Humans are so dumb," he said simply.

Zim smiled and nodded in agreement.

They stood in silence for a moment, until Skoodge looked over at his companion and gasped.

"Zim! You've gotten taller!" he pointed out. "Earlier you were shorter than me!"

Zim gave himself a once-over and broke out in a satisfied smile.

"Eh... yes! It appears I have!"

While the pair cheered and marveled at Zim's random growth spurt, Tesla got bored with the stuffed Vortian her father had given her and began eyeing some of the food on the table.

"It must be the Earth's lack of gravity!" Zim chattered excitedly. Holding a hand up to his forehead and moving it over to Skoodge's.

Skoodge nodded eagerly.

At that moment, Mr. Principal Man stood up on a random table and hollered, "Okay, go home! Parent Teacher Night is over and now I can go home and rid myself of this horrible school system!"

Zim let out a sigh of relief and picked Tesla up, who wiped a few crumbs off of her face discreetly.

* * *

The second Zim arrived home, he passed Tesla off to Skoodge with a command to put her to bed and flopped once again onto the couch. Anything involving going anywhere or doing anything felt like a nightmare to him, so he just lay on the sofa with his ruby eyes closed. He wouldn't even get up if-

"ZIM! ZIM, GET UP!"

With bleary vision, Zim glared at Skoodge tiredly.

"What."

"TESLA'S SICK! OR... SOMETHING!"

He sat bolt upright, suddenly more awake than ever.

"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" he accused randomly.

"WHAT? YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT HAPPENED YET!"

Zim ignored him and bolted down the hall towards Tesla's crib, PAK legs pumping. When he arrived, he found an unconscious Tesla, who was currently breathing shallow breaths with a pale coloration in her face.

He panicked, blowing on her desperately to cool down her limp body.

"She must've eaten something at the refreshment table!" Skoodge babbled in a frenzy.

Tesla opened her eyes slightly and blinked.

"D-daddy?" she whimpered.

 _Nonononono..._

* * *

 **A/N: Yay! Cliffhangers! Everybody loves those!**

 **...Right?**

 **Yech, sorry for the short chapter. I've just been super busy recently, and I haven't been able to find much time to work on stuff. Plus, I got into creating digital art, you know this if you noticed my new profile picture and the revamped cover, and each creation can take close to two hours. This basically means I'm obsessively digitizing every drawing in my sketchbook.**

 **Thanks to Jashinistgirl1, alienn-fricc, and Phoenix-Inferno18!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hey, I got an account on DeviantArt! You can thank alienn-fricc for that, who also helped me pick the name "Inferna-13" since "Inferna13" was taken. Mainly my gallery will consist of concept art and such for my fanfics, including the ones that haven't come out yet (like Challenger Approaching). If you guys want to show me some of your art, send it to TheRealInferna13 . Warning: If things get out of control with the emailing, I will not hesitate to block/report you. Thanks!**

* * *

"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT SKOODGE!" Zim screeched, jabbing a finger into his companion's squeedilyspooch.

"Wha- my fault?!" Skoodge countered as he smacked Zim's hand away. "How on Irk is it _my_ fault?!"

"IDON'TKNOWITJUSTIS!"

"Zim! We have to keep our heads here!"

"My head is perfectly fine! Your head is the one you... didn't... keep no more!"

"That doesn't even make sense!"

"I know!"

Their bickering was interrupted by a random hailing beep from the computer.

 _"SIR. I HAVE COMPLETED TESLA'S HELP SCAN."_

Zim stopped, his reproachful finger still hanging pointlessly in the air.

"You scanned Tesla?"

 _"UGH. SIR, UNLIKE YOU, I HAVE A BAD HABIT OF DOING MY JOB."_

Ignoring the sarcastic response, Zim stepped over to his console (being extra obvious about holding hi sick daughter away from Skoodge) and clicked a few abstract buttons on the keyboard. He held Tesla close and murmured with a shaking voice,

"A- analyze data from health scan."

After a few more bleeps from the computer, a selection of info appeared on the screen, mainly consisting of individual health assessments and a full body scan. Tesla's squeedilyspooch, as predicted, was highlighted red with some Irken letters pointing to it.

 _VIRAL INFECTION. FOREIGN CONTAMINANT DETECTED._

Zim saw none of this, however, because his eyes were squeezed shut.

"Um, Zim?" Skoodge squeaked, tapping him on the shoulder.

"No. Uh-uh. Not looking," came the reluctant reply.

"Zim. Just look."

Slowly, Zim opened one red eye, then the other. After reading the short analysis with a grimace, his gaze fell on the "known cures" section.

 _KNOWN CURES: BLOOD FROM A CARBON-BASED LIFE FORM_

He frowned.

"Well where am I supposed to get _that_?" he complained angrily. "Do they think I can just... _materialize_ a carbon-based life form that is simply _willing_ to let me take blood from it?!"

Skoodge cleared his throat.

"Um, Zim-"

"I mean, it's not like I just have one lying around!"

" _Zim_ -"

"And why so _specific_? Can't it just be a radium-based life form? What's the difference?"

"ZIM!"

"WHAT!"

Skoodge sighed and lowered his antennae.

"Zim, we're standing on a planet full of carbon-based life forms."

Zim blinked at him absentmindedly.

"Um, _humans_ are carbon-based."

No response.

"ZIM, GET SOME BLOOD FROM A HUMAN!"

Suddenly, Zim's "superior" brain finally figured out what he was trying to say.

"Yes! The humans! I'm so glad I thought of that! Aren't I _incredible_?"

At that, he ran off and left Skoodge standing there in frustrated confusion.

* * *

Dib slept soundly in his bed, dreaming wonderful dreams of exposing Zim's shenanigans to the world.

As if he didn't have that dream _every_ night.

* * *

 _"I, Mr. President Man, would like to reward you, Dib Membrane..."_

 _The crowd below cheered excitedly. A number of teenage girls screamed obsessively, each and every one of them sporting an "I Heart Dib Membrane" T-shirt._

 _"...for revealing the alien scum known as Zim to the world!"_

 _Another roar from the horde of people in the audience._

 _"I am happy to present to you... rulership of the entirety of Earth!"_

 _He passed a gigantic golden crown to Dib, who happily accepted his reward with a triumphant smile. The thing sank down on his famous big head, because of its ridiculous size._

 _"Thank you!" he grinned, waving to the group of teenage girls from before. "I promise I will- hey!"_

 _He was interrupted by a sharp pain in his left arm, which he looked down at in surprise._

 _Than again. A quick, focused pain, in his right arm this time._

 _"-what?"_

* * *

Dib woke with a start, suddenly staring up at a shadowy figure at his side, sticking a huge needle up the vein in the crook of his elbow. Red-eyed. Black antennae. Whispering angrily to himself about how disgusting humans are.

Yep, that was Zim all right.

He sat up quickly, forcing the Irken to fall backwards into the wall. The needle fell to the floor with a clatter.

"Hey!" he protested. "Can't you see I'm in the middle of something here?"

Dib jumped out of his bed (stopping for a moment to regain his balance) and fumbled through his bookshelf for something to use as a weapon.

Instead, he got an embarrassing photo that his father refused to throw away of him as a baby getting beat up by his newborn sister. Zim snorted.

"Great," he growled, tossing the awful thing to the side. It hit the floor and broke on impact, sending glass shards spiraling outward.

"Okay Zim, what do you want?"

Zim crossed his arms and did his infamous closed-eyes-and-head-tilted-up maneuver.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Dib-stink."

"Wha-Zim! You're in my _room_!"

"Um, no... I'm... the-uh- _ghost_! Yes, the ghost of this very attractive Zim which you speak of."

"Oh yeah?" Dib countered. "Then why can I... _touch_ you!"

He lunged out at Zim, who sidestepped at the last second so that he toppled over onto the floor in a heap.

"Hey- c'mere!"

With another attack (easily dodges by his Irken counterpart), he tripped over his own foot and ran full tilt into his computer. His desktop appeared on the screen, simply spelling out the words "Agent Batflaps Sucks".

"Stop... _moving_!"

On one final try, he catapulted himself in Zim's direction with newfound force. Zim just huffed in frustration and stepped out of the way, sensing the boy sprawling on the floor again. This time, he slid painfully into the pile of glass shards from the broken photo. One freak piece caught his ankle, sending a spurt of blood out of it.

Zim jumped at the chance, scooping up a bit of it in a strange test tube from his PAK. He then kicked the window out and sent a gloating zipper-toothed smile in Dib's direction, climbing over the windowsill on his PAK legs. As he climbed down the side, Dib couldn't help but wonder, what would he need human blood for?

* * *

"Oh, come on Tesla, don't give me look!"

Skoodge stared guiltily down at the little smeet, who was looking at the space donut in his hand with pleading eyes.

Regardless of her deadly sickness, she was giving him hopeful puppy eyes all so she could get that food.

Skoodge glanced indecisively at the sugary treat, sweating. Give it to Tesla and risk making her condition worse? Or eat it before the eyes could get to him?

Just as he made a decision and held it hungrily up to his mouth, Tesla whimpered unhappily. He looked down again, a pained expression crossing his face.

Maybe one bite wouldn't hurt...

"SKOODGE!"

Zim was glaring angrily at the scene in front of him, his antennae lowered menacingly to their full extent, Skoodge had frozen in place along with Tesla, whose worm-like tongue was extended toward the donut as if to get to it faster.

"Give. Me. My. _Daughter_. Skoodge," Zim growled through gritted teeth.

Skoodge, flustered, handed the awfully pale and limp Tesla over to her father, who snatched her away immediately.

"Now," he pondered, turning Tesla upside-down in confusion so that her legs dangled over her head uselessly. "Where am I supposed to put the blood?"

Skoodge pulled out an Irkpad and squinted at the data written on it.

"Er- it... says you have to... pour it into her PAK..."

"WHAT?!"

He snatched it away from his companion and read over the information, tossing it to the side in an infuriated frenzy.

"Well, how am I supposed to-"

" _INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT."_

Zim glanced up, then back at Skoodge, who looked like he was thinking the same thing.

 _It's been thirty-six hours._

Without hesitation, he bolted to the door on his PAK legs and threw it open desperately (forgetting that his disguise was still in the lab) to reveal a small, metal box the color of the Massive on his doorstep. A screen tag was attached to it, reading " _FOR TESLA. NOT ZIM._ "

He dragged it inside and threw open the lid, where inside it lay a tiny, grey with pink spots PAK.

In a panic, he shoved the thing into Tesla's back. A look of shock (literally) came across her face, until she suddenly went unconscious.

After three excruciating seconds, she _sloooowly_ blinked open her faded Ruby eyes with a whimper of pain and confusion.

He father opened a hatch on her new PAK and poured the blood in without thinking twice, causing a reaction consisting of twitching and jerking about as her body classified the substance.

Then, she stopped.

She looked up at her worried father, then around the room.

"Dad?"

Zim suddenly embraced her in a tear-filled hug, whispering on and on about how worried he was about her. This was odd Zim behavior, for on a usual occasion he would find some way to compliment himself.

Skoodge joined in with a "YOU'RE OKAY!", hugging Tesla almost as tight as her father was.

"Dad, this is embarrassing!" she giggled, pushing the pair away playfully. "I'm fine!"

"Are you sure?" Zim babbled.

"Yes! Relax!"

"Oh, thank the Tallest!"

Tesla stopped and looked down at her current outfit, or lack thereof, and blushed in embarrassment.

"Um, Dad? Uncle Skoodge? Is there a... uniform in that box thingie?"

Zim looked over at said box and handed her a maroon-pink uniform, which she gratefully pulled on.

"You look amazing!" Skoodge gushed. Zim sheepishly nodded his approval.

"Okay, now all I need is training at the Academy!"

Zim's smile faded as the mood went from excited to tense.

"Er- um, of course, sweetie."

Skoodge stepped out of Zim's way sadly as he walked off to collect Tesla's things with a sigh.

* * *

 **A/N: Just a little schedule update: since I've become a little more involved in my art career as well as my writing career, I'm changing my update schedule from every Sunday to every other Sunday. The chapters will also be closer to this length. I know that's pretty annoying (especially if I decide to be evil and leave you guys on another cliffhanger), but it's just really hard juggling school, sports, art, and writing. Thanks for understanding!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I had a dream the other night where Zim was shrunk down to the size of a small grasshopper. It gave me an idea for a new fanfic called "A Small Problem". Keep an eye out for it!**

 **Oh, and I'm dressing up as Zim for Halloween this year. If you go to my DeviantArt page, you can see it.**

 **Hooray for self-promotion.**

 **Also, screw update schedules.**

* * *

The mood was horribly solemn on moving day, the fact that Tesla was leaving hanging in the air like an unwanted visitor.

"Bye-bye, grandma! Write home!" GIR chirped.

"NYEH!" squeaked Minimoose.

"We'll never forget you, Tesla!" Skoodge cried, trying not to tear up (but failing miserably). "You or your memory eraser gun! Ah, so many memories..."

He hugged said gun close, sighing dreamily.

"I can't believe Tesla's _leaving_ ," Zim sighed to himself. A zapping sound went off in Skoodge's direction.

"Who am I? "Skoodge asked.

Zim slapped him across the face to bring him back to his senses.

"Hey- ow!"

Tesla held back a laugh, hugging GIR and Minimoose good-bye.

" _IIIIIIIIII_ threw up on a pony!" GIR screeched.

"Bye, Uncle Skoodge," Tesla smiled, giving him a hug as well. The short and chubby Irken broke out in tears, crying, "I miss you already!"

Finally, Tesla found her way to her father, which was just barely managing to keep himself from following Skoodge's actions.

"Bye, Dad."

"Goodbye, Tesla."

The two embraced in a tear-filled hug.

Skoodge wiped his eyes and stepped over to Zim's computer.

"Computer, when's the next space taxi arriving?"

" _6PM IN TWO DAYS_."

"Two days?" Zim echoed. "So Tesla's not even leaving?"

" _AFFIRMATIVE_."

"Yes!" Tesla cheered, pumping her fist excitedly.

Zim wiped his face on his sleeve without a second thought and shot a finger into the air.

"Right! Now to begin work on my next DIABOLICAL plan!"

Then he stalked off as if nothing had ever happened.

* * *

The next morning, Tesla woke to find Zim standing next to her unenthusiastically, watching her sleep.

"D-dad?" she yawned, stretching her antennae tiredly. "What is it?"

At the realization that his daughter was awake, Zim hurriedly ran over to a mirror on the wall and began admiring himself.

"Er- just... marveling at the greatness of Invader Zim!"

Tesla rolled her eyes with a smile and hopped out of her bed. Even though she had a PAK now, she still had to sleep since her body was still growing accustomed to the new organ.

"Don't we have school today?"

Zim pulled his disguise out of nowhere and put it on with an irritated grumble.

"Unfortunately."

* * *

"And today we will be addressing the topic of you doomed futures," Ms. Bitters hissed. "Let's start with you, Melvin."

As she began to ramble on about the failure of humankind and where it began (the invention of air conditioning), Dib lost interest and let his gaze drift around the room. Not surprisingly, it settled on Zim's desk.

Tesla was being significantly better behaved than last time, listening intently to the lecture. Her father seemed a lot calmer as well, but was having a hard time keeping Tesla on her lap, as she had grown almost _twice_ her original size.

 _Are Irkens supposed to grow that fast?_

Then he got an idea. And by the look on his face, it wouldn't be good for Zim.

What, you think _I_ know what it is? Do I look psychic?

* * *

During lunch, Zim was sitting in his usual spot with a scowl plastered on his face, Tesla chattering happily with him about how excited she was that she got to hear a bit more about human history.

"Yes, yes, that's great, sweetie," Zim mumbled absentmindedly.

"And- uh, Dad? Are you okay?"

Tesla had noticed that he was staring off into space, focused on some nonexistent something.

"Dad?"

"Huh? What?"

"I asked if you were doing alright."

"Er- yes, um, I'm fine. Better than ever."

Then he went back to staring.

After sitting there for a few seconds, Tesla got bored and followed his gaze. Big surprise. He was glaring at Dib.

Dib was pretending not to notice, but every once in a while he would look up to see if Zim was still looking at him, only to find that he was. Then he would go back to twiddling his fingers in order to avoid the metaphorical laser that was drilling through his gigantic head.

"Dad, seriously, you need to let it go," Tesla scoffed suddenly.

"What? Let what go?" Zim asked, finally turning around to look at her.

"Your rivalry thingie with Dib! I mean, don't you think you disguise or whatever would be more effective if you would at least _pretend_ you two were friends?"

Zim blinked at her in confusion.

"I don't understand," he frowned.

"DAD, YOU AND DIB NEED TO GET _ALONG_!"

Tesla's voice had risen without her realizing it, making Dib catch that last part of their conversation. He and Zim, alien scum, friends? No. Not if he could help it.

"Zim's an alien! Who would want to get along with an alien?!" he protested, chucking an orange at Zim's head for good measure. "Not in a million, bajillion years!"

Just as Tesla took a breath to try and talk some sense into him, the bell rang to release the children to recess.

Stupid bell, always interrupting important conversations.

Zim took the chance to book it out of the building. Tesla sighed and followed him, sending a mournful gaze over her shoulder that Dib didn't quite catch.

* * *

Outside, Tesla had made it her mission to convince her father to get along with Dib. After all, she just had this weird sort of... connection with him. Unfortunately, Dib and Zim's hatred for each other was keeping her from getting through to him. If she could just get them to sit down and talk it out, she could have a source of information for Earth. All she wanted to do was help her dad with his job.

"Hey, Dad?"

"Yes?"

"Can I go home?"

"Right now?"

"Yeah. I... don't feel well."

She clutched her squeedilyspooch as if she was sick, launching Zim into overprotective parent mode.

"What's wrong? Are you okay? Does it hurt when I-"

"DAD! _Relax_! I just need some rest!"

He hesitated, but reluctantly let her go.

"Sure. Go home- er... back to the base."

After pecking him on the cheek and saying a quick good-bye, Tesla pranced off to a secluded part of the fence behind the skool. While she used the laser from her PAK to cut a large circle into it, she began to formulate a plan.

 _Okay, so I have 4 hours until Dad gets home from skool. All I need to do is disarm the Dib-keeper-outer thingie. Easy peasy, Florpus squeezie_.

Dab watched suspiciously as Tesla re-welded the fence and ran off.

 _Perfect_.

* * *

Tesla threw open the door in a hurry, only to run smack! into something that had stepped into her way.

"Uncle Skoodge!" she scolded, holding her pounding head. "Shouldn't you be at skool?"

Skoodge crossed his arms and shrugged dismissively.

"Your dad said I should make sure nothing happens to you, or something."

Tesla sighed melodramatically.

"A babysitter? Is he serious?!" she fumed. "I'm not a smeet anymore, Dad! Why can't he just..."

She waved her arms around for a moment as she searched for the words, then gave up and slouched with a huff. Great. Now how was she supposed to deactivate the Dib sensors?

"I'm going to my room," she announced, stomping off in the direction of the trash can. Of course, she wasn't going to her room. She was gonna get to Dad's computer.

As she grabbed the rim and thrust herself into the elevator gracefully, she pumped her fist discreetly in celebration.

Success!

But as she stepped out of the elevator, something in her room caught the corner of her eye. She poked her head into the doorway, identifying the mystery object as a security camera.

"Augh, Dad, why?!" she complained, walking in reluctantly and flopping down onto her bed. Awesome. Now she was stuck here.

With a tired sigh, she racked her brain for a plan. She found herself doing this a lot, actually. Her mother must have been smart, because she sure didn't get it from Zim.

Could she maybe distract Skoodge somehow? No, the security camera would catch it. Could she cover the camera up? No, too obvious. So how was she supposed to do this?

She rolled over thoughtfully. Suddenly, a perfect beam of light caught the edge of a weird symbol on the camera.

 _What's that?_

She squinted her eyes to see it better. It looked sort of like a human eye, with some curved lines on the top and bottom. What was _that_ supposed to mean?

Before she could decipher it, a cloth was held up to her mouth that smelled distinctly of chloroform. Thankfully, her attempted captor knew next to nothing about Irken biology, judging by his failure to put the cloth in the right place.

Irkens don't breathe through their mouths, but their antennae.

After a quick descision, she went limp as if she was passing out. If she waited for the right moment, she could catch him off-guard and buy herself some time to fight back.

Her captor began stuffing her into a bag made of scratchy and uncomfortable fabric, which made her skin tingle all over. It itched like crazy, but there was nothing she could do about it.

 _Don't panic_ , she assured herself. _Wait for the right moment._

She let one eye crack open a bit so she could get a good look at him. Unfortunately, there was a mask covering his face. He could have been human, or Blarken, or Xlactian, or Shloogorghian...

Finally, the right moment came. The masked intruder let out a sigh of relief as Tesla's antennae slipped into the bag, signaling her to strike.

She deployed her PAK legs suddenly, tearing the bag open violently and throwing her captor off guard. He fell over onto his butt, dazed.

She took the chance. When he tried to get up, she pinned him down with one PAK leg and removed his mask with another. A long, black cowlick sprung out like a hyperactive rubber band.

" _Dib_?!" she exclaimed. "What on Irk are _you_ doing here?!"

Dib looked sheepish for a moment, then shook his head as if to clear out the guilt.

"Exposing the world to the alien scum, _obviously_!"

He reached for a camera at his belt, which was knocked away in a heartbeat by Tesla.

"Well, you're not gonna do it by holding chloroform up to the wrong place," she sniped.

"Anyways," she continued, ignoring the oncoming response from Dib. " _You're_ supposed to be at skool."

Dib was a little startled by her sudden casualty, but responded, "Er- I followed you."

"Won't you get in trouble for that?"

At her last comment, Tesla's grip loosened slightly.

"Well, yeah, but it's totally worth it."

"Heh, worth what? _Almost_ capturing-"

All of a sudden, Dib kicked his leg out forcefully and scored a direct hit in between her eyes. The weakest spot for an Irken besides their PAK.

She heard herself cry out in pain, and everything went black.

* * *

 **A/N: If you hate me for giving you another cliffhanger, I'm doing my job right.**

 **Anyone who comments the hidden reference gets... uh... a free commission on DeviantArt or something. I dunno.**

 **Thanks to Radji for the favorite!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I FINALLY got some concept art for PSO: AE up on DeviantArt. It isn't all that good, to be honest, but it's better than nothing. I did get some Challenger Approaching stuff up, also.**

 **Okay, now that I'm done delaying the conclusion to the cliffhanger and making your life harder, on with Chapter 8. ;)**

* * *

Tesla was sitting in a dark room that smelled of metal and chemicals. Or, at least, she _thought_ it was a dark room. There was a bag over her head.

She blinked her useless eyes and began to panic internally, random questions racing into her head like malevolent wasps. Where was she? Where was her dad? _Who_ was she?

Slowly, she willed herself into focus and began mentally running through the events leading up to her situation in a logical manner, which she _definitely_ didn't get from her dad.

Okay, she was in her room, Dib showed up, she fought him and he kicked her in the head...

Well, that would explain the pounding headache she was currently experiencing.

She bit her tongue to stop herself from making noise. Maybe if she just stayed still and pretended to be dead, her captor would leave her alone...

 _Rrrrrrip!_

The bag was torn off of her, sending a blaring beam of light directly into her eyes from a lamp hanging over a large table in front of her.

"OKAY, ALIEN!" Dib commanded, pointing an unfamiliar gun-like device at the sensitive spot between her eyes. "WHO'S 'THE TALLEST'?! ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ZIM'S DAUGHTER?! WHAT OTHER PLANETS HAVE THE IRKENS CONQUERED?!"

Tesla tried to move, but the metal clamps on her wrists and ankles held fast.

"Where am I?" she asked, doing a pretty bad job of keeping the shake out of her voice.

"That's not important! Answer the question, Irken scum!"

He pressed the weapon into her forehead, setting off too many internal alarms to count.

"TheTallestAreOurLeadersYesI'mReallyZim'sDaughterTheIrkenArmadaHasConqueredPlanetsBlorchVortDirtXlactiaBlarkShmoopLumaDugiTabloSmeekSmekkoJohnnyP-34InfernaSpanLenaVacatio..."

Dib dropped his device a small bit and blinked at her.

"DillySplrekRägGlantNovSnarl-"

"Okay, stop, stop." Dib said, putting the weapon down on the table and waving his arms around. "How do you remember all that?"

Tesla, embarrassed at her sudden outburst, replied, "I... looked it up on my dad's computer. I... want to be an invader."

The moment she said it, she wished her shackles would allow her to face palm. Why on Earth would Dib NOT react badly to that? What if he put her on TV? What if he sent her to Roswell? What if-

"Why?" he asked, sitting down curiously across from her.

"Why?" she echoed.

"Yeah, why do you wanna be an invader?"

Then he realized he was supposed to be scary, and set his face sternly.

"For... interrogation purposes."

"Um..." she muttered, her antennae twitching unconsciously. "Because... it's cool. And.. I want to follow in my dad's footsteps."

 _Oh, Vortian spit_ , she cursed internally. _Wrong thing to say, idiot._

"Your dad's footsteps _happen_ to involve murdering 7 billion innocent people in cold blood," Dib growled. "Why can't either of you get that through your thick heads?"

"Murdering? No, just enslaving."

 _Do I even_ listen _to myself when I talk?!_

" _Just_ enslavement?!" he fumed. " _JUST_ ENSLAVEMENT?! Of all the inconsiderate-"

"Enough!" she interrupted, making the chair shake in protest. "I'm not like the others! I have free will! I have compassion!"

Dib hesiated.

"I… don't think I've ever heard an Irken use the phrase 'I have compassion' in my entire lifetime," he said quietly.

Tesla sighed and tried to bring her heart rate back to normal.

"Why'd you kidnap me anyway?"

"Oh, yeah. _That_. I wanted to ask you stuff about the Irkens."

Tesla stopped, a sarcastic smile creeping slowly up from the corner of her lip.

"You went through all that trouble so you could ask me some _questions_?" she retorted.

"I- well, Zim wasn't exactly _open_ about anything I've ever asked him before," Dib sputtered, then shook his head and went back into interrogation mode.

Because that worked _so well_ on Skoodge earlier.

"So tell me more about your leaders."

"The Tallest?"

"Yeah, them."

She looked down at the metal clamps keeping her on the chair. Her usual self would have opened up her PAK legs and demanded that Dib release her while she pointed a gun at his giant head, but she felt a sort of pang telling her that she should answer his questions. He was too soft to _really_ hurt her, anyway.

She tried to relay some of the information she had found while going through her dad's computer (which she wasn't supposed to do, but the computer liked how nice she was to it), reading it off directly from memory.

"The Tallest are appointed due to their height, hence their name, and cut off their thumbs during coronation to prove that they can rule the empire with only two fingers. Usually there is one Tallest, who is only demoted from that position if they die or if another Irken becomes taller than them, but there are two Tallest currently ruling. They were born by chance from the same cloning tube, therefore receiving the same height and being two of the only Irkens alive with a sibling of any kind. While most Irkens are named according to a random cycle of names, the current Tallests' two-minute old minds came up with their own, Red and Purple. But they have ordered to simply be called "My Tallest" rather than their real names."

Dib looked up from the notepad he had pulled out of nowhere and pointed a pen loosely at her PAK against the metal chair. "What about those thingies you guys have on your backs?"

"PAKs"

"Sure, whatever."

"PAKs are attached right after birth, assigning us to our name, position, and personality. Except me. I got mine a few days ago."

She was about to tell him about the ten-minute survival rule, but swallowed the words. Didn't need Dib stealing one of their PAKs and accidentally taking on one of their personalities. That would be bad.

"How do your antennae work?"

"Um, antennae act as olfactory and auditory organs, as well as to convey emotions. For example, if they're pointed like this…"

She perked her antennae until they were straight up in the air.

"...It means we're alert or alarmed. If they're like this…"

Her antennae drifted slightly forward.

"...then we're curious. Flattened against our skull indicates anger, midway is neutral, and this is… er… happiness."

Slowly and unsurely, her curled antennae pointed ridiculously far down to the point where they brushed her pink shoulder pads. Her face flushed a brilliant dark green, making Dib wonder if that's what that _really_ meant.

"I've never seen _Zim_ do that before," he half-joked, only trying to lighten the mood. Tesla chuckled halfheartedly and returned her antennae to normal.

 _Why is he trying to make me laugh during an interrogation?_

"So if you get to ask me a bunch of intrusive questions, shouldn't I get to ask you something, too?"

Before Dib could even begin to protest, she continued.

"How to humans reproduce?"

She actually already knew (she had spent a disturbing hour looking it up out of curiosity), but she had observed that many young humans freaked out when they talked about it.

He turned a satisfying bright red immediately, sputtering, "What?! What kind of question is that?!"

"You got to ask me something, it's only fair," she pointed out matter-of-factly. Of course, she knew there _was_ no matter-of-fact. She just wanted to embarrass Dib. She may have been "different" than the others, but the Irkens' love of torturing things for fun still remained.

"Okay, no. That's not how interrogations work. I ask the questions here. You're my prisoner. Uh-um...Uhhhh..."

"Good question," Tesla deadpanned. Dib sent her a playful glare and looked down under the table at his hand.

 _Did he write_ notes _on his palm?_

"Um… what're you thoughts on your mom?"

Tesla stiffened, the smile falling from her face.

"My...mom? She… I don't know. I never met her."

"Well I know _that_. I'm not stupid. Didn't you look her up?"

"I… no."

"Okay…"

He was about to press further, but he kind of understood. He had never met _his_ mom, after all. He knew how hard it was.

"Um… if you guys don't eat food, where does your energy come from?" he asked.

Tesla sighed quietly.

"Our PAKs generate it automatically from our movement," she explained.

"But we can eat things with high sugar and carbohydrate content if we want."

"Is that why you don't sleep?"

"We sleep. Just… my dad's too busy."

"With what? Wait, no, lemme guess. Making up plans to destroy the Earth."

Tesla didn't answer.

"Hello?"

No response. Just dead silence.

"What's up with your reaction? Don't you want to take over mankind? Don't you want to be like your dad? Don't you-"

"Shut up!" Tesla screamed suddenly, her shackles rattling angrily. "I don't _want_ to be an Invader! Do you even know what it's like to know that your dad is bent on destroying an entire planet?! And he wants _me_ to do the same! This whole time I've been pretending I'm okay with it, but I'm not! How _could_ I be?! _I don't_ want to be an Invader!"

She fell eerily silent, her antennae dropping back to neutral as she sank back into her chair.

"You… don't?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but-

 _BOOM!_

A sizable chunk of the wall exploded, sending stray bits of building flying out like cannonballs. Dib screamed and hid under the table, but Tesla was denied that luxury.

"Tesla!" came a voice from the gaping hole in the wall.

" _Dad_!" she cried, struggling to achieve any sort of movement in her metal bondage.

Zim jumped in, PAK legs retracting, and ran over, wrapping his precious daughter in a neck hug.

"Tesa! Are you hurt? Is your PAK intact? Are you-"

He stopped, realizing that Dib was staring at them from underneath the table. He turned an embarrassed shade of dark green, before his face transformed from relieved to furious.

"This is the LAST STRAW, Dib-creature," he snarled. "Prepare for your doom."

With a pathetic squeak of terror, Dib booked it down the hall.

Of course, Zim followed him, leaving Tesla sitting awkwardly in her chair.

"Uh… Dad?"

* * *

 _Pant...pant...pant…_

Dib ran through his house, moving faster than he ever had in any old PE class. Zim was catching up to him effortlessly, running on his PAK legs like some kind of demented spider monster.

"End of the line, human!" he screamed from closer behind than he had realized. He had to get to the garage. If he could use Tak's ship to fire a net or something at Zim, he could make a plan from there. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than nothing.

He suddenly turned a corner, hoping to send Zim sliding into the wall in order to slow him down. Of course, he wasn't that lucky. Zim just switched direction without falter. Dib huffed in frustration.

They passed by Gaz, who didn't even bother to look up from her video game, and Professor Membrane, who was too busy developing the next version of Super Toast to notice.

Dib rolled his eyes at his useless family, turning the last corner to his garage. It was a straight shot right to it. All he had to do now was-

"Ack!"

He tripped.

Like a total idiot.

Zim caught up to him in a flash, pinning him down with one spider-like leg and raising another over his head to bring down onto a vital organ of some kind.

"I've been waiting forever for this, Dib-stink!" he screeched.

He plunged the sharp PAK leg down, aiming for his chest, and Dib closed his eyes tightly. This was the end. He knew it. His life began to flash before his eyes, mainly consisting of him getting beat up by his little sister.

But the blow never came. He _wasn't_ dead.

He carefully opened one eye, only to see Zim wrestling with a little, silver robot attached to his torso.

"Haaaaiiiiii Master!"

"GIIIIIIRRRRR!" Zim roared. "I told you to stay at the _base_!"

"Master Number Two told me to give you a BIIIIG hug!"

He squeezed his master even tighter, making him gasp and sputter angrily. He unconsciously let go of Dib, attempting to use his PAK legs to pry GIR off.

Dib took the chance, scrambling up and sprinting toward the garage. He threw open the windshield of his stolen Spittle Runner, hopping in hurriedly and pressing a few buttons on the dashboard. The panel lit up, making small beeping noises and opening up a sound hologram.

" _WHAT IS IT_ NOW, _HUMAN_?" Tak's voice growled.

"Aim the net shooter at Zim and fire!" he screamed, rattling the monitor. "Hurry!"

The computer sighed, and a catapult transformed its way out under the windshield.

But it didn't aim.

" _BUT WHAT IF I DON'T_ WANT _TO_?" the ship asked lazily. " _BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, I HATE YOU_."

"But you hate Zim too, don't you?"

" _WELL, ALTHOUGH THAT_ IS _TRUE, I HATE_ BOTH _OF YOU_."

"Come on! Just do it!"

" _HMMMMMM_ …"

"It's important!"

"HOW _IMPORTANT_?"

Zim was unbearably close to removing GIR, who was only hanging on by his arms by this point.

"Really, _really_ important! Seriously, he's gonna come murder me if you don't catch him!"

" _THAT WOULD TAKE CARE OF_ ONE _OF MY PROBLEMS_..."

"Gah! Come on! You _have_ to!"

He looked at Zim again, whose PAK legs were lodged in between himself and his squealing robot servant.

" _AND WHY IS_ THAT?"

"Because... Because…"

" _YES_ …"

"BECAUSE ZIM AND TAK HAD A KID TOGETHER!"

The computer fell into a shocked silence, then slowly adjusted the catapult to aim at Zim.

Finally, he tore GIR off of his midsection and threw him into a wall, screaming, "I'm coming for you, Dib-monst- ack!"

The net hit him square in the chest, entangling him in a mess of metal limbs and angry threats. He struggled uselessly against the metal wires boring into his skin, his antennae spazzing out insanely.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?! I WILL TEAR OFF YOUR LIMBS AND FORCE FEED THEM TO YOU! I WILL UNLEASH A RABID MONKEY ON YOUR FACE! I WILL TURN YOUR INTERNAL ORGANS INTO HOT CHEEZO DUST!"

Dib breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank you, computer."

"GO STICK YOUR GARGANTUAN HEAD INTO A VAT OF BOILING OIL."

The ship powered down, throwing him out of the front, and closed up entirely with a decaying beeping noise.

"YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS, DIB-HUMAN! DO YOU HEAR ME?! YOU WILL PAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!" Zim howled.

Dib rubbed his sore butt and walked right past him, leaving all the furious screaming behind.

 _I'm gonna go get Tesla._

* * *

 **A/N: I wouldn't say this is a cliffhanger, per-se, but… you know.**

 **Sorry if this one was a bit lacking, creative block amiright? If you get bored of waiting, you can look at my almost-daily releases on DeviantArt.**

 **Thanks to shadythedragon for the follow! I also want to thank Ladyanaconda (the author of "The Smeet" and "Lost", great fanfics) for her support on DA.**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: So sorry for the delay, I was very busy with... let's see... CREATIVE BLOCK.**

 **Anybody notice that Tesla said "why on Earth" in the last chapter rather than "why on Irk"? Foreshadowing... ;)**

 **Also, I got a MUCH BETTER drawing of Tesla up on DeviantArt. It still isn't all that good, but PLEASE check it out to wash the sheer crap from the last one out of your head. I also have some fanart of "The Smeet" up, if you happen to read that.**

 **On a final pre-chapter note, I posted a new fanfic! See the post-chapter author's notes to learn more.**

* * *

Something dawned on Tesla while she had worriedly sat, clamped to an uncomfortable metal chair.

She had missed her space taxi.

She didn't know when the next one was coming, and her PAK was screaming at her nonstop to get to Irk and the Academy, but she couldn't help but feel relieved that she had a bit more time to spend with GIR, Minimoose, her dad, and... Dib?

Why was she so happy to know that she was going to see Dib, her dad's mortal enemy and her kidnapper, for longer than she had to? There had to be something she could blame that on.

 _Dib's blood_ , muttered a small voice inside her head.

 _Dib's blood? Didn't Dad use that as a cure for my viral infection? Could it have altered my emotions somehow?_

A crash sounded from further down the hall, probably her Dad knocking over a lamp or something in his savage pursuit.

She let out a sigh of frustration. He had simply _left_ her there. She knew he was coming back, but couldn't shake the feeling that his rivalry with Dib was overshadowing his love for her.

"Haaaaaaiiiii Master Number Two!"

 _Oh, thank the Tallest._

"GIR!" she cried, struggling in her shackles to get to the little robot that had wandered in through the gaping hole in the wall. "Get me out of here! Use your buzzsaw!"

GIR saluted, and a large rubber ducky deployed from the top of his head.

"Wha- GIR!"

" _Yeeeeees_?"

"... you replaced all your weapons with toys didn't you?"

" _Noooooo_ ," he protested, crossing his arms defiantly. "There's food in there too!"

She sighed and looked around the room, her gaze meeting nothing but the empty cell-like space with a gigantic hole in the wall.

"Okay, scratch that. Go help Dib."

" _Whyyyyyyy_?"

"Because I said so."

" _Whyyyyyyy_?"

"Because he needs help!"

" _Whyyyyyyy_?"

"Because- okay, just give Master Number One a _big_ hug. And whatever you do, don't let go until I get there."

For once, GIR obeyed and screamed his way down the corridor.

 _Hang in there, Dib._

Zim's screechy voice came from down the hall, filled with angry, incoherent words. It worked.

Now was the hard part. Her dad would be able to pry his robot servant off of him sooner or later, so she needed to escape in order to talk some sense into him.

She started with her PAK legs (which she was still a little rusty at using), attempting to find a lock to pick. Unfortunately, it was electronic and Dib probably had the remote control.

She would have tried shocking it to cause a short-circuit, but that only would've resulted in her electrocuting herself.

She huffed, frustrated. Why couldn't Dib be as stupid as all the other humans she had met?

That was probably one of the many things that kept her from hating him, no matter how much pressure her dad was giving her about it. His intelligence, his sarcasm, even his _hair_. She _wanted_ to hate him, but couldn't bring herself to think anything all that negative about him. He was _different_ than everyone else.

Suddenly the door slammed open, revealing a panting young human with messy black hair and a wrinkled trench coat.

 _Speak of the devil..._

"Did you win? Who won? Is my dad okay?" Tesla asked hopefully.

Dib rubbed his forehead and walked over to her tiredly.

"Sure, you're dad's fine. And I won, thanks to you."

She blinked.

"Thanks to... me?"

"You sent Zim's little robot thing, right?"

"Oh, um, yeah."

Dib reached up and felt along the metal clamps around her wrist, sending a weird tingle down her spine that made her PAK spark a little. He stopped at a barely noticeable red button and pushed it down. A click, and the chains were off.

She jumped off gratefully, rubbing her wrists and cursing herself for not knowing that was there.

She tried walking forward, but promptly fell on her face.

Her legs had fallen asleep.

"Are you okay?" Dib asked, offering his hand to help her up. Tesla just waved dismissively and tried once more to stand.

Of course, it didn't work. She just toppled over again.

Dib stuck his hand out a little further, forever insistent.

Slowly, she reached out on her own and took his outstretched palm. He lifted her up, and she put her arms out sideways to help regain her balance.

"Let's go talk to Zim," he said. Tesla nodded, flustered in embarrassment, and followed him out the door.

* * *

"GetBackHereYouLittleCoward! ComeAndFaceMeYouLizard-Faced, HorribleJellyfishMonster-"

"DAD!"

Zim looked up, dark green in the face from the effort of all the screaming, and struggled to find a good way to see through the netting.

"Tesla! Thank the _Tallest_ the evil Dib-creature didn't do anything to you! I'm sure you threatened him expertly, did you not?"

Tesla smiled at him and sent Dib a wink.

"Sure, dad. He was terrified."

Dib frowned.

"Now please, sweetie," Zim sighed, moving slightly. "Get me out of this."

The smallish Irken shrugged and stepped over, grabbing onto the rope holding her father captive. She tugged with all of her strength, but the countless loops around his PAK legs held fast and tight. He made a strangled noise of pain, most likely because of the loop that had found its way around one of his antennae.

She pulled harder yet, only to receive the same reaction.

Dib walked up, grabbing Tesla around the waist, and helped her try to rip the thing off of her father. A loop wriggled it's way off of one spidery PAK leg, but they got no other result other than Zim's sharp growl of disapproval.

"Geez, Zim, how much struggling did you _do_?" Dib panted, wiping his sweaty palms on his coat. Zim did nothing but twitch his antennae.

"Dad, if you wanna get out of here, you have to let him get within three feet of you," Tesla pointed out snidely.

Zim's antennae vibration slowed, but didn't dissipate entirely. Dib began to wonder if Irkens had some sort of language involving antennae movements along with the clicks and hisses he kept hearing.

Eventually they had to resort to having Tesla talk to her father while Dib tried his best to untangle the thin wire tangled around him. Tesla would help out every once in a while, pointing at a loophole or a knot that could be untied. Within ten minutes, Zim had his arms wrapped around his daughter in a panicky hug full of babbles about how worried he had been.

It made Dib feel really, _really_ bad.

His mind began to explore the idea of what _his_ father would have done if he had been taken away. As much as he loved the concept of the world being torn apart in the search for his son, it was more likely that he would just send a microbe of a search party and continue on his latest study.

"Dib-human!"

"Oh-um, what?"

Zim huffed. "I want you to know that if you ever do something like this again, I will personally stab through your giant head a million times over."

He paused to let that information sink in, which worked wonders. Dib gulped.

"In the meantime, Tesla has somehow convinced the almighty Zim to spare your insignificant life... for now."

Tesla smiled at him shyly from behind her father. He just gave her a half-hearted wave of thanks, which Zim apparently didn't notice.

"Come, Tesla!" he announced proudly, a huge gun deploying from his PAK and blowing another hole in the wall. "It's time to go home!"

She glanced back at Dib, who was staring in disbelief at the second gaping hole that he would have to explain to Professor Membrane later, sent him a sympathetic smile, and scampered off to follow Zim out.

* * *

"I believe it's time for you to learn to defend yourself," Zim commented, dropping another box into the Voot Cruiser's cargo bay.

There turned out be exactly _zero_ space taxis arriving within an Earth month, so Zim was going to have to fly Tesla the whole six months to Irk himself. That meant they had to load the Voot up with twice the rations, twice the supplies, twice of everything else. It also meant he couldn't take GIR the eating machine, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

"Dad, I'm going to the Academy, I'll be fine," Tesla replied nonchalantly, though she knew that wouldn't be enough to convince her mule of a father.

"Maybe I should keep you here," Zim grunted, picking up a heavy box of something metal. "Maybe I should train you myself. It would be easier."

Tesla gave him a playful shove, nearly toppling him over, and laughed, "We both know I'd drive you insane."

He regained his balance, one antennae twitching. "I'm still not certain I'm making the right decision."

"You can brood on that on the way there."

About halfway through the packing process, Tesla noticed a slight movement from the window (Irkens have excellent peripheral vision because of the lack of pupils) and crouched down to check it out. Even though most of the window was in the bottom half of the house, a small corner stuck out it the attic to look through.

It was Dib. He was standing on the sidewalk, watching the house with an unreadable expression on his face.

She had to go out there. After all, it was only fair to say goodbye to Dib before she left forever.

"Hey Dad, I'm gonna get something from downstairs," she lied.

Zim looked up for a moment, then back down. "As long as it doesn't take up too much space."

She hurried to the elevator, commanding the computer to take her to the ground floor. Within seconds, she was throwing the door open to reveal a depressed-looking Dib.

He froze, grasping desperately for an excuse to be standing there like a creep.

"I-um, I-uh..." he sputtered. "I was... birdwatching?"

Tesla giggled at his lame explanation and stepped up to meet him at the sidewalk.

"Hey, what about your disguise-"

"Relax," she assured him. "Here, I'll show you. HEY, LADY!"

A woman who was previously hosing down her son in the front yard looked up blankly.

"Do you notice anything weird about me?"

The lady tapped her chin for a moment, then shook her head and returned to blasting her kid with water.

"See?" Tesla smirked, lightly punching him in the shoulder. "It's fine."

Dib sighed at the sheer stupidity of the human race and leaned back on one leg.

"So-uh, why'd you come out to see me?"

"Oh yeah," she mused. "You looked lonely. And you were sort of standing in my front yard, what was I supposed to do?"

Dib laughed unenthusiastically at this, not sure how to react.

"...And I wanted to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" he echoed, trying not to look as crestfallen as he was.

"Yeah, my dad's flying me up to the Academy."

A confused stare.

"Oh, right, sorry. The Academy is where all Irkens go to train in order to become of use to the Empire."

Dib gave a quick nod, but it was pretty obvious that he was bursting with questions.

"Do you have to go?" was the one he chose.

Tesla was entirely taken aback by this. He had said it so sadly, so _hopelessly_ that it almost seemed as if he _wanted_ her to be there on Earth with him.

"Well, yeah. It's my duty as an Irken to get an assignment and report to the Tallest."

Dib stuffed his hands in his pockets and mumbled something incoherent.

"TESLA!" screeched Zim's voice from inside the house. "WHERE ARE YOU?"

She sighed and turned to walk inside, only to catch Dib's depressed shoulder slump as she did so.

After a moment's hesitation, she whirled around and wrapped him in a warm, friendly embrace.

Dib stumbled backwards a little. He barely even had time to comprehend what was going on before she had said goodbye and closed the door behind her.

 _What was_ _that?_

* * *

"TESLA!"

"I'M _COMING_!"

Zim was standing next to the now running Voot Cruiser, hands resting impatiently on his hips.

"What took you so long?" he asked in irritation. She simply brushed past him and hopped into the passenger seat with a mutter of, "Couldn't find it."

After a prolonged sigh, Zim plopped down next to her and hit a few buttons on the console. The windshield shut with a hiss of pressurized air, and the roof began to slowly open.

"Computer!" Zim called.

" _WHAT_."

"Set auto-navigation systems to the Planet Irk."

A holographic screen appeared in front of him, displaying a basic map with a dotted white line running between two planets marked _Earth_ and _Irk_.

 _Home_.

Tesla wriggled a bit in her less than comfortable seat. Irk was her home planet, technically, and she had no idea whatsoever regarding what it would be like to finally visit it. Her mind filled with brilliant jumbles of colorful grass along rolling hills, blossoming with assortments of cheerful pink flowers.

But that vision didn't last long.

It was soon replaced with thoughts of a hostile iron jungle, sneering Irken guards armed to the teeth with heavy artillery, standing a top attention everywhere you looked. _This_ vision made her blood run cold.

With a final rusty groan, the ceiling opened up entirely to reveal Earth's stunning blue sky, clouds floating lazily past like marshmallows in hot chocolate.

Oh, she was going to _miss_ hot chocolate.

To her surprise, Dib was still standing in front of the house with a sad frown plastered on his face. It came as an even bigger surprise that he wasn't filming the takeoff with a handheld camera of some kind.

" _AIR PRESSURE MAINTENANCE SYSTEMS ONLINE. TEMPERATURE MAINTENANCE SYSTEMS ONLINE. LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS ONLINE. PREPARE FOR TAKEOFF,"_ droned the computer.

Tesla made a spur-of-the-moment decision.

"Dib! Hey, Dib!"

The large-headed human boy looked up and gave her a polite wave.

"Do you wanna come with us?"

Zim whipped his head around toward her, as did Dib.

"WHAT?!" they screeched in unison. The two glared at each other in silence for a moment, Zim being the first to say anything.

"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?!" he howled. "ALLOWING THE DIB CREATURE ANYWHERE NEAR MY SHIP?!"

Tesla nodded sternly.

"DIB-HUMAN! EXPLAIN TO MY _IGNORANT_ DAUGHTER HOW _TERRIBLE_ THAT IDEA IS!"

Dib looked torn. On one hand, going with them meant spending extra time with Zim cooped up in a cramped ship for six months, listening to his constant screaming. His old life would be left behind entirely, and it would be a risky gamble every time he stepped out onto a foreign planet.

But on the other hand... space. Exploration. More time with Tesla. Other stuff.

"...okay, Tesla. I'll go. Just lemme get some stuff."

Zim stared after him, slack-jawed, both his antennae and his eye twitching dangerously.

"Dad?"

No response.

"DAD!"

* * *

 **A/N: _Phew_ , that was long. I wanted to give you guys all those words since I waited so long, and _boy_ did I accomplish it.**

 **Okay, now on to the new fanfiction. It's already up, but there's no cover for it yet. You'll know why soon.**

 **It's called "Irk Du Freak" (please tell me someone gets that reference) and it's a choose-your-own adventure story, something I've never seen on this site before.**

 **Here's how it goes: I write a chapter with a choice to make at the end, you comment your decision, and I tally up the votes to provide to you the next chapter.**

 **PLEASE check it out. So far I only have _one_ vote for the design of the main protagonist (thank you, Zim'sMostLoyalServant), and that needs to change before I write the next chapter.**

 **Many thanks to muddyleaf and PineapplesAreReal!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Welcome to the final chapter of Primordial Space Ooze: Alternate Ending! Yep, that's right, final. Yep, that's right, ten chapters.**

 **...sorry.**

 **The reason it ends so early is because:**

 **A): Irk Du Freak needs a lot more attention**

 **B): The entire sequel will consist of Zim, Dib, and Tesla cramped into the Voot together, and the sequel to THAT will be their time on Irk**

 **C): I totally ran out of ideas**

 **Anyways, if you notice anywhere where I say like, "says" instead of "said" or something, please ignore that. I noticed I did that a few times because of how Irk Du Freak is written.**

* * *

"Hey! Gaz! Dad! Anybody home? _Hellooooooo_!"

There wasn't an answer, but Dib could hear the beeps and bloops from Game Slave 2 in the living room.

"Gaz!" he cried, shutting the door as quietly as he could behind him. Sudden noises sent his sister into a rampage on some days.

Most days, actually.

Okay, _all_ days.

Gaz didn't even look up at him as he walked into the room, but he knew she was listening.

"Gaz, I'm leaving. For, uh, I dunno, a few... months? Years? Ugh, I should've written a speech or something..."

She opened one eye and glared at him without looking away from her game. It was an unsettling talent of hers.

"Can't you see I'm almost finished with this boss?" she growled. If he was too persistent, it would turn into a snarl. "I finally figured out the cheat code."

"Fine, if you don't care about your own _brother_ launching himself into space with a psychopathic alien creature, see if I care," he snorted, tossing his head up and stepping into the hall.

After a few seconds of silence, save for the GS-2 sound effects, he poked his head back in.

"Are you wallowing in sadness yet?"

Gaz finally looked up at him. "I'm _always_ wallowing in sadness."

That was his cue to leave her alone.

"Dad!" he called, trying not to capture too much of his sister's attention. "Dad!"

"I'm in the lab, son!" came the muffled response.

After stepping out of the elevator, he was met with the sight of his tall father poking a half-pig half-chicken creature with a pencil. It screeched, creating a sensation similar to getting your ears torn off and chopped into a million little pieces with a chef's knife.

" _Fascinating_..." he muttered to himself.

"I'm going to space!" Dib blurted all of a sudden.

" _Space_ , you say?" He turns. "Ah, an astronaut! _Almost_ as admirable as being a scientist!"

"No, dad. I'm going to space _right now_. With an alien, no, _TWO_ aliens. For at least a year."

"Yes, yes, have fun, son. Just be sure to include your sister in that imaginative game of yours. _So_ glad you've decided to pursue something worthwhile."

He stuck his finger into the air, as per usual, and called out, "NOW! Back to SCIENCE!"

The chicken-human thing squawked defiantly as he returned to his work. Dib took this as a sign that his efforts were futile and walked out the door.

* * *

"WHAT GAVE YOU THE IDEA TO INVITE THE DIB-HYOOMAN ALONG?!" Zim howled, shaking violently. "HE'S OUR MORTAL ENEMY!"

Tesla had been trying desperately to calm him down ever since he'd snapped out of his daze, attempting everything from talking things through to forcefully pinning him to the pilot's chair.

"Dad, he's YOUR mortal enemy," she corrected. "Think of this trip as a way to put your differences to rest-"

"OUR DIFFERENCES CAN GO TO REST WHEN THIS _FILTHY_ PLANET IS NOTHING BUT A PILE OF DUST IN THE VACUUM OF SPACE!"

"Okay, I- you know what? Let's call the Tallest. That always seems to calm you down, right?"

Zim's antennae perked. "Ah, yes, my Tallest. I forgot to notify them about our journey to Irk. They'll be _so_ excited!"

He happily pushed a few buttons in a state of child-like bliss, as if he hadn't been going ballistic three seconds earlier.

"My Tallest!" he chirped at Red and Purple's sarcastic faces on the monitor. "I apologize for not calling in earlier, I had to take care of some stuff."

They looked over at each other for a moment, then back at Zim. "What do you want?" Red yawned. "I have a pressing issue to attend to involving ten pounds of donuts and my mouth."

"Oh, of course, Tesla and I-"

"WHOA, THAT'S TESLA?!" Purple screamed, startling his co-Tallest. "She's _huge_!"

Tesla fiddled with her antennae. It felt like some suppressed instinct was forcing her to acknowledge their authority, but she was really _bad_ at it.

"Erm, yes, my-uh, Tallest."

Red cocked an antennae, Purple holding in a laugh next to him. They were, of course, used to the salute and antennae wiggle from their underlings.

"Aww, you're so grown up!" the latter half-giggled. "Last time I saw you, I could hold you in one hand!"

" _Ahem_ ," Zim coughed.

"You were so _cute_!"

"My Tallest?"

"I mean, you're STILL cute, of course, but like, you know-"

"MY TALLEST!" he finally screamed. "I have news for you, remember?"

Red shoved Purple out of the way. "Yes, yes, get on with it, Zim. Donuts. Mouth. Come on."

"I have decided to fly Tesla to Irk myself."

Purple promptly fainted, leaving the slack-jawed Red to sputter, "W-what?"

"Yes, my Tallest. I understand it may be a challenge to contain your excitement."

A few employees ran over to Purple and began frantically splashing him with some sort of cold liquid. After a moment, he shot up.

"YOU'RE COMING TO IRK?!"

Zim chuckled to himself.

"Yes, sirs. Now, I have a trip to complete. I will see you in person within six months," he grinned, then shut off the transmission. The Tallest's horrified expressions faded into the management screen.

* * *

Back at Tallest Tower, Red and Purple were still staring at the blank monitor, frozen in place. A communications officer tugged at Red's robes. He looked down, only half-awake from his trance.

"Uh, sirs? You've been staring at the communication screen for an hour now."

He blinked, still light years away, and shook Purple's shoulder. There wasn't much of a reaction, only a simple turn of the head.

"Zim's coming to Irk..." he whispered, staring off into nothingness.

A harder shake still left him totally and completely unfazed.

"Zim's coming to Irk..."

Red put both hands on his shoulders and rattled him around hysterically with as much vigor as he could muster.

"Talk to me, Pur," he begged.

"Zim's coming to Irk..."

"PURPLE!"

* * *

"Now that that's over with," Zim sniffed. "Where on Irk is the Dib-monster?"

As if one cue, Dib turned the corner with a balance-retarding duffel bag tucked under one arm. "Hey! I'm here! Don't leave!"

"You think we would leave without you?" Tesla called back to him.

" _Yes_!"

Zim lowered the cruiser, just enough to allow him the ability to toss his bag and haul himself up (thanks to Tesla's helping hand), growling from his throat. Apparently he was still unwilling to let the "hyooman" anywhere near his tech.

The takeoff was made in total awkward silence, aside from Zim's quiet clicks that seemed to mean something in Irken. Dib didn't know what, obviously.

He was squashed into the back "seat" (really just an uncomfortable puzzle piece position next to the stacks of supply boxes), Tesla only an arm's reach away. If he was feeling really brave, he could've reached out and played with both of her antennae at the same time. For investigation purposes, you know?

But he wasn't feeling brave, of course.

"So how long is the trip?" he asked instead.

"Six months," Zim replied simply.

His reaction consisted of jumping suddenly, elbowing over a stack of boxes, and ending up in a heap on the floor. "WHAT?!"

Tesla stared at him. "Did you think we can just, like, shift into warp speed or something?"

"Well, yeah!"

Zim half-scoffed half-laughed at him and pulled a lever on the console, apparently switching to autopilot. "Hyoomans and their silly beliefs about space travel."

He bristled and opened his mouth to argue, but Tesla sent him a look that said, "You're making it worse."

"Look, if you guys fight all the way there, I'll actually go insane."

Zim glared at Dib, and Dib glared at Zim, but neither said a thing.

"Now," she continued. "I want you two to shake on it. No more fighting, at least on the way to Irk, okay? You can duke it out all you want when I go to the Academy."

Dib stuck out a hand after a moment, but his Irken counterpart just crossed his arms and tilted his head up, an all-too-familiar maneuver of his.

"I refuse to do such a thing," he snarled, as if shaking hands with your enemy was suddenly a heinous crime.

"Look-"

" _EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE_!"

A pair of luminescent blue eyes popped in out of nowhere, eventually forming into arms and legs and a little antennae. Tesla fell out of her chair, making a sort of squeak-chirp noise.

"GIR!" Zim hollered, grabbing his wriggling little robot servant angrily. "What are you doing here?!"

GIR smiled insanely and squealed, "You found me! Now _you're_ it!"

Tesla face-palmed. As much as she loved GIR, six months in a 5 and a half-foot cruiser with him would be an absolute nightmare.

"Hey! Big-head! I didn't know you were playing too!"

She sighed, already exhausted.

* * *

They eventually figured out how to mellow GIR out, which happened to be giving him something to chew on. In this case, it was an old stuffed Vortian toy from when she was younger.

It gave her a weird feeling of Dejá Vu to see it, but she couldn't put her finger on when she had had it. Her mind even wandered enough to wish she had been articulated enough as a smeet to keep a diary.

A diary. Hey, that's not a half-bad idea...

* * *

Day 1

Okay, I know there aren't really "days" in space, but I'm going off Earthen time to keep myself sane. 

Speaking of keeping myself sane, I'll write one of these as quick notes to myself every time something interesting happens.

I don't know what the future holds, but one thing's for sure: this is going to be a _loooooooooong_ six months.

Yours truly,

Soon-to-be trainee Tesla

* * *

 **A/N: Aaaaaaaand, done.**

 **Okay, I get it. This chapter was short. I was pressed for time, okay?**

 **Tesla will indeed write a journal entry at the end of every chapter, where she puts down thoughts from her head down onto a piece of Earth paper.**

 **If you get bored waiting for the sequel, PLEASE for the love of The Tallest check out Irk Du Freak. I have two votes. TWO VOTES! I really need some people to get on over there so I don't disappoint the people that DO read it.**


End file.
